Collusion OK if money is spent

IN 2015 Saudi Arabia began an illegal assault on Yemen, initially as a bombing campaign against Houthi rebels. In that same year, more than 83% of the arms exports that the UK negotiated went to Saudi Arabia – most in the form of “oil-for-arms” deals.

That both Britain and the US were complicit in this Saudi invasion is inarguable.

That the present Prime Minister has made it her quest to ensure that Britain continues to supply arms and more to the Saudi regime is likewise inarguable.

This collusion between the British government and the Saudi regime rarely, if ever, receives the critical attention that it warrants from mainstream outlets.

When North Korea announced the successful launch of a nuclearpowered missile on July 4 this event received blanket coverage in both print media and broadcast media. Why?

North Korea chose to follow a Marxist/Leninist regime, and in so doing incurred the wrath of Washington, which views any regime that chooses a different doctrine from its own as being a direct threat to its world hegemony aspirations.

Washington has imposed crippling sanctions on the North Koreans – in exactly the same way as it did to Cuba under Fidel Castro – in the hope of inflicting regime change.

Thus, by developing and launching this missile, the North Korean government has, effectively, raised a single digit to Washington, thereby refusing to buckle under pressure.

Ever since the Korean War – officially 1950 to 1953 – when US-led forces wreaked terrible damage on North Korea, bombing to obliteration every town and city in that country, indiscriminately killing innocent women and children in their pursuit of an ideology, the US has sought regime change.

They have invested time and resources in this over-70-year campaign, and the announcement of this rocket launch makes that investment appear to be fruitless.

The announcement of this launch means that the Pyongyang government has the wherewithal to retaliate against any forthcoming US aggression in whatever form.

A government that is prepared to drop “the mother of all bombs” on Syria without a shred of verifiable evidence to warrant any such action is capable of anything.

Now, however, Washington has to realise that should it embark on a similar act of recklessness against North Korea, it does so in the certain knowledge that North Korea has the capability of striking back at the west coast of America.

So it would appear that if you head a regime that spends millions of pounds annually buying British and US weaponry, you can carry out any despotic act you wish, it will receive nil coverage in corporate media. However, head a regime that is in opposition to these same regimes, and any act of perceived defiance will receive blanket coverage. Democracy is a wonderful thing, is it not? Patrick G Rafferty Tonypandy, Rhondda