Weapons Spread

* Re “Potential U.S. Enemies Amass Advanced Arms,” Sept. 4: We’ve heard a lot about our deficit and its effect upon our children. But why is there such resounding silence about the effect upon our children of the wanton and unrestrained sale of our most modern weapons and war systems? It is a dismal failure of our elected representatives that there have not been laws put into effect that bar such an idiotic, perhaps suicidal, absence of policy that permits our defense Establishment to sell the cutting edge of war technology to our potential enemies.

Economy be damned if it means our children will face these weapon systems. With the new world order translating to engagement in regions far afield, with enemy nations declaring their hatred for us and the world as we know it, shouldn’t we consider military engagement with one or all of them as inevitable? And, does our military want to face the best weapons that we develop? Can there be enough profit in the commerce of military hardware to neutralize the insanity of it?

COLE MAUGANS

Hollywood

* The article mentions Russia and China as suppliers of the Third World’s growing stockpiles of sophisticated weapons. But it fails to mention that the world’s No. 1 international arms merchant is the United States. Since 1990, the U.S. has been the main supplier of arms to the Persian Gulf countries and to Asia, and it accounted for almost 60%--more than $30 billion worth--of all worldwide arms sales in 1993.

These U.S. arms sales keep federal dollars flowing to the Pentagon, which in turn keeps many defense firms alive. But it has a disastrous effect on developing nations. And rather than exporting its democratic ideals, America sells 90% of its marketable arms to non-elected governments and dictatorships, fueling regional wars and arms races.

JAMES C. MOSLEY

Laguna Hills

* If the military and the government are just becoming aware regarding the dangers of high-tech weapons proliferation among so-called Third World countries, they could have learned from a reading of Shakespeare. Macbeth says, “But in these cases we still have judgment here, that we but teach bloody instructions which, being taught, return to plague the inventor. This even-handed justice commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice to our own lips.”

N. DWIGHT HARMAN

Redondo Beach