Personally I think it criminal to sell arms abroad for commercial profit. It's bad enough that we do it at home. Just as the first step toward the abolition of slavery was the abolition of the slave trade, so now the first step toward the abolition of national military arsenals should be the abolition of the arms trade. Common security must replace national security. It's time to think of national disarmament and of an international police force to counter the depredations of nationalism, tribalism, and racism.
War is a coward's escape from the problems of peace.
Peace, long a desirable option, is now a compelling imperative lest we resemble those dinosaurs, extinct because they suffered from too much armor and too little brain. I am well aware that in pretending to an unattainable truth we perpetuate a lie. I don't know. Willam Sloane Coffin, minister emeritus of Riverside Church in New York City, lives in retirement in Stafford, Vermont.