The weapon industry has it's own agenda, .. they are an industry trying to make profits.. has nothing to do with defending our country. That is secondary at best. They do use that excuse to have more tax dollars spent on weapons.. in fact, US speaks majority of its tax money on weapons, where as europeans spend it on affordable education, health care and decent infrastructure, that will continue to serve them well even in a world without oil.
Roosevelt expressed his serious concerns about the weapon industry getting ahead of itself and gaining power and having an agenda of its own (profit, politics) far beyond 'self defence'.
And his nightmare has come true.. weapons are not only sold to allies.. today's allies are not tomorrow's allies, .. US sold weapons to dictators, even to saddam, .. only to fear-monger surrounding countries and tellt hem they too should buy US arms to protect themselves against the enemies, in this way, carlyle group and such, made billions a month.. then US manipulates political processes, sets people up against eachother, and supports others, no matter how good or evil they are (dictators), for strategic purposes.. or 'defend national (economic) interests'. That justifies supplying arms to just about anyone, as that in it self is serving US economic interests.
But is it ethical? hell no.. but then ethics is not part of the rule of capitalism.. it can merely coexist.. without it, even child prostitution can be justified with "hey, it's better than the alternative, kids having no means of earning money and buying food at all"..
capitalism and pragmatism, without ethics, leads to doom and gloom.
Weapons are considered a 'product'.. not the loss of life.. and nobody cares to know that 95% of those weapons will kill innocent people somewhere around the world.. the generally acceptad fallacy that "guns don't kill, people do" is used to justify this.. where as you may safely assume in any country a certain percentage is mad but we prefer not to arm them..
Unlike what NRI likes to tell you.. an armed world is much less safe than an unarmed one.. meaning.. if you have 10 people, 9 good, 1 bad, if all are unarmed, it's more safe, than if all of them ARE armed.. as in first case nobody will die, in latter case at LEAST 1.
This and nothing else, explains the procentually much higher rate of deaths in the USA by arms, than, let's say in Europe.. thousands!