Don’t follow US on North Korea

Martin McKenzie-Murray (“It’s possible this man isn’t crazy”, September 9-15) quotes Turnbull as saying: “I remain confident the global community will put more economic pressure on North Korea and that will bring the regime to its senses.” The main threat seems to be that Donald Trump wants to stop China (and presumably anyone else) supplying North Korea with oil. When Roosevelt did that to Japan, the result was the attack on Pearl Harbour, and a deadly assault on the rest of the Western Pacific region to capture Dutch and other oilfields. And Japan did not have an H-bomb. I do not expect Trump to know anything except the dollar, but after losing wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and the war on terror in Afghanistan, while slavishly obeying their American masters at the cost of thousands of Australian lives, I should expect an Australian government to recognise at last the US hasn’t a clue about international affairs. One might think a government that talks about almost nothing but squeezing the poor to balance the budget would not want to spend even more dollars. It might even have some sympathy for the allegedly famine-ridden poor of North Korea, or are they to be sacrificed like asylum seekers?

– Terry Stanton, Tinonee, NSW