Why the King’s visit to the US should be cancelled - Yorkshire Post Letters
From: William Loneskie, Justice Park, Oxton, Lauder, Berwickshire.
The government has requested the King attend the USA's 250th celebrations and he has agreed. He should not attend because it would validate Trump's vile leadership.
The 47th president of the United States has brought the world to a crisis point by launching an illegal, unprovoked, cruel, and vicious war against an ancient Persian civilisation - one which predates that of America by thousands of years - and threatened to "bomb it into the Stone Age" and totally destroy it and its people.
Even if a ceasefire holds things will never be the same again. And the war is only the latest in a catalogue of Trump's wayward decisions. No one will ever trust Trump again; the reputation of the United States has been trashed; the world economy will take years to recover; the future of Nato is a risk as is Ukraine. And Trump finished one of his recent rants against Iran by mentioning yet again the need to "take" Greenland.
The King is in an impossible predicament not least because his love of Arabic culture and Islamic art and architecture, and as patron of the Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies will make him appalled at the destruction caused by Trump's and Netanyahu's military.
I am in agreement with Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey when he said as early as March 6 that "At a time when Trump has launched an illegal war that is devastating the Middle East and pushing up energy bills for British families, it's clear this visit should not go ahead.”
Since then Professor Jeffrey Sachs, a leading economist and adviser to numerous countries as well as the UN has described Trump simply as "a madman". I am in agreement too with veteran broadcaster David Dimbleby who called the visit an embarrassment and urged its cancellation because of the numerous times Trump has insulted and belittled the UK and her military.