Sir, – I agree with your Editorial (August 10th) regarding the dangerous war of words between Donald Trump and North Korea. But missing from recent discussions is a sense of why North Korea became this way in the first place.
North Korean leaders developed their paranoid worldview in the wake of the devastation of the Korean war, when the United States carpet-bombed the North.
Its leaders subsequently developed a bunker mentality, vowing never again to be such a target.
In recent years, the North Koreans developed nuclear weapons to ensure their country’s survival and to demonstrate its own military strength.
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Political dialogue and diplomacy must be pursued in order to help resolve deep-seated political issues. President Trump and his allies may condemn the regime, but they must try to understand North Korea’s perspective in order to engage in meaningful diplomacy. – Yours, etc,
RICHARD COFFEY,
Terenure,
Dublin 6W.
Sir, — Am I the only one of your readers that thinks President Trump is right to warn the North Korean leaders? And I do say “warn”, not “threaten”. I am quite sure that Americans learned from that awful previous war in Korea, so would be very reluctant to start again.
I don’t see Donald Trump as another George W Bush. We can only hope that he isn’t. Yours, etc,
W J MURPHY,
Malahide, Co Dublin.