Team Trump is the gang that couldn’t fly straight.
There was a time when the mere sight of an American warbird in the sky meant something. It meant you could sleep soundly in your bed, or it meant you’d better find a deep hole to crawl into, depending on which side of the fence you happened to be standing.
Out in the wide and dusty expanse of western Iraq, the only thing that came down on Thursday was a hard lesson about the difference between having the finest Air Force the world has ever seen and keeping the damn things pointed up.
A KC-135 Stratotanker, the kind of flying gas station that keeps the whole shooting match running, went down. Just fell right out of the sky.
US military officials, choosing their words as carefully as a man walking through a minefield, confirmed that this flying fuel truck was involved in some sort of disagreement with another aircraft.
The other plane, another KC-135 Stratotanker, they were quick to note, made it back to the ground in one piece, which is a bit like saying one half of a barroom brawl walked home while the other was hauled off in an ambulance.
Four of the six service members onboard the downed refueling aircraft died when the plane crashed in western Iraq on Thursday afternoon, according to the U.S. Central Command (Centcom).
Rescue efforts were continuing for the remaining two service members as of 5:30 a.m. EST.
Rescue efforts are ongoing, officials said, after the KC-135 tanker was involved in an accident with another KC-135.
They’re calling it an accident, which is the official way of saying nobody shot at it.
They’ve asked for patience, which is the official way of saying they’re trying to figure out how to tell some families that their loved ones won’t be coming home from a war where they were supposedly in friendly skies.
The identities of the fallen will not be disclosed until 24 hours after next of kin have been notified.
In a brief statement disclosing the incident in western Iraq, U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations throughout the Middle East, said that the second aircraft landed safely and that the crash “was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire.”
The KC-135 Stratotanker typically has a crew of three: a pilot, a co-pilot, and a boom operator, who manages the refueling of other aircraft. Depending on the mission, it might also include a navigator or other additional crew members.
Refueling aircraft have been in high demand since the Trump administration’s war with Iran began on Feb. 28. In the past two weeks, U.S. forces have launched continuous airstrikes on over 6,000 targets, hitting ballistic missile sites, Iranian air defenses, and weapons production facilities.
Now, a man would have to be a fool to think that machinery doesn’t break. It does. But when you stack this little incident up against the recent ledger of American aviation mishaps, you start to see a pattern that looks less like bad luck and more like a habit.
You might recall the three American fighter boys over Kuwait. Fine pilots, probably, sitting in some of the most advanced jets ever built.
And what got them? Not the Iranians, not some surface-to-air missile from a genius in a cave.
It was the welcome wagon. Friendly fire. Allied forces took a look at three F-15s and decided they looked enough like the enemy to warrant a one-way trip to the ground.
The pilots punched out, which is the only good news in that story, but it leaves you wondering if the folks pulling the trigger know who pays their salary.
And then there was the little nautical misadventure with the F-18s.
A bird can’t teach a fish to fly, and a fish cannot teach a bird to swim, but somehow, several of the Navy’s $70 million F-18s decided to take an unscheduled dive in the Red Sea.
Two F/A-18 Super Hornets dropping off the Truman carrier in the Red Sea within days of each other are excellent indicators about whether Pete Hegseth was the right choice to lead Trump’s warriors into the 21st century (He was not).
They just dropped off the aircraft carrier’s deck. The Navy, to their credit, has a term for everything. They call it landing mishaps.
But when you’re watching millions of dollars’ worth of taxpayer-funded hardware sink to the bottom because a carrier had to turn sharply to avoid some Houthis’ fire, it raises a question.
If we’re turning so hard our own planes fall off, are we running the ship, or is the ship running us?
It brings a wearying thought to mind.
We’ve got more than fifty thousand young Americans camped out over there, staring down the barrel at Iran, flying almost every type of warplane in the fleet. It’s a serious business, the most serious there is.
And yet, the people overseeing the store back home seem to be picked less for their steady hand and experience, but more for their ability to shout loud enough to be heard on cable television.
Time might be working in Iran’s favor in its fight with the United States, as President Donald Trump deals with growing pressure at home and abroad to bring the war to an end.
U.S. and Israeli military dominance has taken a heavy toll on Iran, striking its navy, missile launch sites, and other assets. Meanwhile, the war is creating major challenges for the hawkish Republican president, with oil prices climbing and Gulf allies scrambling to intercept waves of Iranian drones — all as the pivotal midterm elections approach.
Surging gasoline prices would exact a political cost on the Republicans, who have a whole government department being run by folks whose primary qualification was looking good under studio lights while hollering about how easy it would all be if they were in charge.
Well, now they’re in charge. And the machinery of the most powerful military on earth is falling out of the sky into the Iraqi desert, getting shot down by its own friends, and taking unplanned dips in the sea.
It’s a poor craftsman who blames his tools, but it’s an even poorer one who blames the tools while ignoring the shaking hands of the man holding the hammer.
Out in the desert tonight, rescue crews are picking through the wreckage of a plane that ran out of sky for no good reason.
And back home, the men who got us into this fine mess are probably getting ready to go on television to explain why it’s actually a sign of strength.
“War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength” is the central, paradoxical slogan of the ruling Party in George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984.
Republican consultants are probably poll testing some form of “doublethink”—the ability to hold two contradictory beliefs simultaneously—designed to serve as a tool for psychological manipulation, forcing citizens to accept the GOP’s version of reality over their own senses and reinforcing absolute obedience to Big Brother Trump.
But unfortunately for the Republican Party, Air Force, those consultants are unable to make that propaganda fly.
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