Madam, - In a week when George Bush will undoubtedly claim to be the bastion of the war on terror, it is interesting to read that the US now accounts for 57 per cent of the world arms market.
Russia and Germany also make telling contributions to the global arsenal, which is a vast supermarket for potential terrorists. Most of the sales are to countries whose claims to run democracies are tenuous in the extreme and whose behaviour towards their own populations only drives gullible young men and women into the arms of waiting extremists.
It is also ironic that the biggest customers for arms from the West also meet the criteria which resulted in the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't think we'll see a "coalition of the willing" heading towards Saudi Arabia or China in the near future. Do you? - Yours, etc.,
BARRY WALSH, Church Road, Blackrock, Cork.