Selling weapons overseas.

• Author: Morsello, Joe
• Position: READERS' FORUM: VIEWS ... COMMENTS ... SUGGESTIONS - Letter to the editor

* I would think that selling our weapons to anyone who can afford to buy them is a good thing ("Export Controls: A Contentious Issue Reaching a 'Boiling Point," July 2008). It keeps our domestic arms producers financially healthy, secures the necessary skilled workforce and will encourage innovation without government funded research and development.

After all, is it better for us to export products or more jobs? Yes, these products are weapons and they would be used against us. However, we know exactly what makes them tick. Knowing exactly how a weapon performs and what goes on internally, naturally makes it possible to defeat. If nations or other non-state actors don't buy American made weapons they'll buy them from somewhere and we don't have a monopoly on sophistication. We sell everything under the sun to Saudi Arabia; I can't think of a nation whose population is more hostile to the United States. It was French missiles that hit British ships during the Falklands War and U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq War and it is Italian land mines that cripple hundreds every year.

It's better to know what your enemy is using rather than being surprised on the battlefield when it's used in a way we never expected because we did not fully understand how it functions. Jointly developed weapons are a drafty window when it comes to securing sensitive technology. Who will make sure that our development partners are not turning around and...