Turning Sword Factories Into Plowshare Plants

The opinion-page article "Where's 'Restraint' in Arms Sales?," Aug. 27, is a timely and much-needed rebuke to President Bush to have the US greatly curtail trafficking in arms sales and face up to its tragic consequence.The author strongly favors telling US "industrial conglomerates" to turn from manufacturing arms to "productive civilian enterprise" thus carrying out the prophetic Scriptural promise of making plowshares from swords and pruning hooks from spears. Replacing arsenals by "building relationships with former adversaries" is the author's sane and sound recommendation to "our friends in the third world" leading to a universally peaceful globe. President Bush and US arms producers should give earnest heed to this compassionate outcry urging restraint in arms sales. One has but to recall Iraq as an example of the sheer folly of the US selling arms to other nations only to have them used against us. Charles F. Rasoli, Long Island City, N.Y.

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