Sir, - In an excellent report on Algeria, Lara Marlowe writes: "Europe and the US are equipping the security forces in Algeria's dirty war". However, Europe is not yet a nuclear armed state like the US, and what she means that certain states in Europe, not Ireland, are supplying the weapons.Yet if the Amsterdam Treaty, which states in Article J.7.1 that "the progressive framing of a common defence policy will besupported, as member states consider appropriate, by cooperation between them in the field of armaments", is passed by referendum in March 1998, then Ireland will be taking a major step towards making Ms Marlowe's statement correct.Paul Gillespie (The Irish Times, October 25th) believes we are living in a "post-imperial world". This is nonsense. The Amsterdam Treaty is supported by members of the political elite precisely because it helps expand the European arms trade and accelerates the merger between the nuclear armed WEU and the EU. They clearly wish to build a nucleararmed imperial state to fight the resource wars of the 21st century. - Yours, etc.,Roger Cole,Chair,Peace & Neutrality Alliance,Blackrock,Co Dublin.