YP Letters: North Korea's belligerence raises echoes of the Cold War

MOST of my age group well remember living through the Cold War between America and the USSR and it was always at the back of our minds that one or the other of the idiots would press the red button. It seems we are, once again, heading back to those days of threatening rhetoric from both sides with a vengeance.

Watching the newsreels of the North Korean parade with its endless troops and mobile missiles was very reminiscent of those USSR parades of the 60s and 70s. However I had to chuckle at the absurd images of a short little fat man in an over-generously cut suit swaggering alongside a tall and equally absurd-looking military general doing the Communist version of the goose-step.

However my hilarity is tempered by the fact that this paranoid little dictator Kim Jong-un – who lives in an unreal world of his own making – is a highly dangerous individual and highly likely to instigate a nuclear war just to prove to his own political followers, and the world, that he is more than just a pompous and posturing absurdity.

My personal solution would be that he ought to be ‘taken out’ as the secret service would say, but then there would be the worry as regarding what other volatile little idiot would take his place. Quite frankly, we have enough to worry about with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

From: Edward Mitchell, Bridgwater, Somerset.

JUST what is the Government of the United States up to, with all the sabre-rattling against North Korea? Maybe they should remember that the US, France, Australia and Great Britain tested and stored nuclear weapons in the 1950s and ‘60s. And yet when North Korea tests a rocket or two, the US Government act like hysterical children, shouting and screaming that they are a ‘rogue state’ and that ‘appropriate action must be taken’. As far as I can see, the only ‘rogue state’ appears to be the USA!

What does President Trump want? Another Vietnam? Leave North Korea alone, America, and stop trying to be the world’s policeman.

From: Andrew Mercer, Guiseley.

GIVEN the state of world affairs, let’s hope Boris Johnson, as Foreign Secretary, gets on with the day job rather than playing the buffoon on the campaign trail to shore up the Tory vote.

Let’s see if he’s up to the job of global diplomacy before the post-election reshuffle.