UNIMPEACHIBLE BEHAVIOUR?
President Trump continues on his high-handed way
to alienate many people during his period of office.
A President without a clue,
On his high-handed way;
Who’s full of praise for cronies who,
He'll sack the coming day!
A monarch who tweets the inane,
Contemptuous of all;
Who's reign could well be on the wane,
To an impeachment fall.
There's Senate and Congressional,
Investigations on;
A leader who's obsessional--
A Mafia-type Don.
And then there is another row,
That haunts the USA;
The Viet Nam War was then but now,
The Yemen of today. (1)
Arms contracts with the Saudis seem, (2)
To be worth more than lives;
The US war machine's regime, (3)
Is how God's nation thrives.
So folk in the 'democracies',
That make up all the West;
Just think of Trump’s hypocrisies,
And all those he’s oppressed.
(1) Both Britain and the US are selling weapons to Saudi Arabia
which are being used to kill thousands of civilians in the Yemen.
(2) Trump recently visited Saudi Arabia to sell $120m worth
of arms in exchange for the Saudis investing $200m in the US.
(3) America spends more on armaments than Russia, China and
all the other nations of the European Union put together. Its Air
Force uses between one third and half of all the world's jet fuel.
© Richard Layton
2 comments:
"Its Air Force uses between one third and half of all the world's jet fuel."
Where does such a juicy statistic come from? Where doth it reside?
Hi Trevor I asked our poet and he replied as follows:
Hi Matt,
This statistic came from a TV programme—possibly the BBC. The poem (and notes) were commenced some time ago so I’m afraid I can’t remember much more than that.
As far as I can recall, the programme made the claim that “half the worlds jet fuel was used by the USAF”. I checked on line and another source said the consumption was a third.
Confusion may have arisen (in the TV Programme) because the USAF has used, in the past, JP8 jet fuel which is covered by US & British military specifications but it also uses small amounts of JP5, JP6, JP7, JP 9, etc for more specialist use. In 2014 it converted to a more standard type jet fuel (Jet A + special additives) to save money.
These grades are also different from other air forces. Another source of confusion seems to be that the USAF budgets each gallon at a set price irrespective of what it actually pays, which can vary widely. Some of its exotic fuels cost $59 a US gallon so calculation of its consumption by dividing its total spend by the theoretical low standard price per gallon to give a physical total doesn’t seem too accurate a method.
I don’t know when the TV programme was made but on further reflection it may have been referring in its ignorance to JP8 fuel and not standard Jet A. Perhaps Mr Goodger-Hill can throw further light on the subject?
Richard
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