Trump and his big guns

The president of the United States wants to hold a grand military parade, Kremlinesque-style, with troops and tanks going down Pennsylvania Avenue and who knows what else: perhaps a couple of ICBMs on low-loaders, some Tomahawk cruise missiles, Reaper drones, one secret "black pogramme" super secret weapon under heavy tarpaulin, and all the service chiefs in their finest. Trump of course would be standing on a very high dais saluting with Mike Pence looking uncomfortable and Jim Mattis, looking Jim Mattis, standing either side of him. Poor Mattis, the guy never smiles at the best of times but when he got the latest missive from his commander-in-chief to draw up plans for a massive parade, he must have bellowed with anger and frustration. As if he doesn't have enough to do with trying to keep the US armed forces up to scratch to fight Russia, China, North Korea Iran, al-Qaeda, Isis, Nusra Front, Turkey (possiby), Syria, Yemen, Somalia, etc etc. It'll take months and millions of dollars to sort out a parade and for what? For the glory of Donald Trump so that he can invite his new best friend, Emmanuel Macron, to witness an even bigger and better military parade than the one the French president put on display on Bastille Day. This ego stuff is truly gob-smacking. Ok, if the next world war ends in victory, then by all means, let's have a victory parade as a form of thanksgiving. But right now, the US military are not in a celebratory mood. They've had 16 years of non-stop warfighting and there is very little chance of that coming to an end. Afghanistan will go on for ever. Congress is so mixed up and angry it can't agree on giving the Pentagon more money. So all in all it's not a good time to go around waving flags and showing off a lot of metal in the streets of Washington DC. But Trump wants to feel the power in his bones, he wants to remind everyone that he is the commander-in-cief and how better to do that than stand upright in front of the crowds as thousands of troops march by and salute him. It's all very un-American.