Sir, - I would gladly lend support to President Clinton in his global campaign against the twin evils of drug trafficking and terrorism. But there is a third evil which President Bill neglected to mention, an evil which has held the world in its grasp since the dawn of the industrial revolution: the all-powerful multi-billion-dollar arms industry, which day in, day out, mass produces the tools of death and destruction, which keeps terrorists and despots of every description in business.
The same industry enables President Clinton's United States to remain the world's largest gun-owning democracy, where death-dealing weapons are sold over the counter like any other commodity, and regularly fall into the hands of children, with horrific results.
In recent times, the world applauded President Clinton when he decided to declare war on those other merchants of death, the cigarette manufacturers. This is still raging. We all wish him victory.
Shall we see the day when President Bill, or possibly his successor, will declare war on the Goliaths in the arms industry - those who have made the century just ending the most violent in human history? - Yours, etc., Finbarr Barrett,
Mount Carmel Road, Greenmount, Cork.