How can a world leader do this?

If the news out of communist North Korea is true, it is as much hideous as it is frightening.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has reportedly had his defence minister executed for showing disloyalty – obliterated by anti-aircraft fire in front of an audience of hundreds of people.

According to South Korea’s spy agency, the minister was killed because he fell asleep during an event attended by the Supreme Leader and didn’t carry out his instructions. A senior military officer was reportedly also executed.

It’s not the first time there has been such barbarism from one of the most repressive regimes on Earth. Some 70 officials have been executed since Kim took over after his father’s death in 2011. And the brutality extends to direct family members who have also been in the firing line.

BBC News reports “the most notable was his uncle – once the country’s second-most powerful figure, arrested, found guilty of treason and immediately executed. There have been reports before of North Korea using heavy weaponry in executions, including mortars”.

Let’s not forget, North Korea has nuclear capability, reportedly with 20 nuclear weapons capable of striking North America directly.

While we commonly look to America to take the lead, CNN questions whether current US policy is the solution:
“Administrations of both political parties have wavered between intense negotiations that ended up appeasing North Korea and periods of inaction that amount to little more than hoping for the best. The result is a North Korea that has grown in a decade from an exotic regional nuisance to a more direct and significant threat — one that is led by a young dictator who looks less buffoonish and more diabolical by the month.

“If policy doesn’t change, this trend of increasing danger probably won’t either. Until the United States and its allies challenge the regime and its enablers more directly and effectively, the threat will persist. And it may very well worsen”.

In an ideal world, history would repeat. Good would rise up against evil and be triumphant – look at what happened when the world stood up against Hitler, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

In the latest case of North Korea and Kim Jong-un, is enough, enough? How is it that a world leader can behave this way and what should the world do about him?