Trident makes nation a target

I use the word “dismay” for want of a better word to explain my angst that too many fellow Scots have swallowed the pap emanating from successive Westminster governments.

Mr McKay and those who think like him should be advised that Faslane and Glen Fruin are already targets, to use Mr McKay’s own words, “for every mad dictator or religious fanatic across the globe” because of Trident’s presence in our land. Why? Because Trident is not a weapon of defence, it a first strike weapon of mass destruction already on the radar of every nuclear armed country on this planet.

Should the unthinkable ever happen by design or accident, a direct hit on Faslane and/or Glen Fruin, Trident could not be readied in time and the resultant destruction would devastate the population of the city of Glasgow and most of the west of Scotland. Our land would be uninhabitable and contaminated for a quarter of a million years. An independent Scotland would have a defence capability and will not be a target for harbouring a weapon of mass destruction such as Trident.

John J G McGill, Kilmarnock

ONCE again Alexander McKay’s terror of Independence has rendered him incapable of rational argument.

Putting to one side the size of the number of people Mr McKay thinks will be affected by the removal of Trident, what does he mean when he says that those who believe that the SNP will employ those who are dependent on Trident for work “deserve what will surely come”?

This seems to be a pretty vindictive thing to say, but what is he hoping will befall these hapless romantics – unemployment, ruination or total obliteration in a nuclear holocaust which will miraculously bypass the Jurassic Park he inhabits?

Then Mr McKay goes on to list a number of dictators to exemplify those who might pose a threat to Scotland and justify Trident’s retention. The only flaw is that three of them, Hitler, Pol Pot and Saddam Hussein, are dead and never possessed nuclear weapons, and in naming the fourth, Kim Jong-un, it seems, that among world leaders, only David Cameron believes that he is capable of hitting the UK with a nuclear warhead.

It’s time to grasp the thistle, Mr McKay, and accept that there will be enough of us with the courage to take Scotland to a point in our destiny which does not include a weapon we could never use. Let’s hope that the 80 per cent of the population who want to be rid of Trident bear that in mind on referendum day.

Douglas Turner, Edinburgh