Calgary Sun | Feb. 02, 2003 | Orest Slepokura
Letters to the Editor

U.S. generosity, mandated by the 1941 Lend-Lease bill, predated the Marshall Plan by several years. ("History lesson," Paul Jackson Jan. 28, 2003.) By December 1943, the U.S. had shipped $18,609,000,000 worth of arms and supplies to its Allies; including 7,000 planes, 35,000 tanks and 195,000 motor vehicles to Soviet Russia, which helped consolidate Josef Stalin's grip on power for another harrowing decade. Already, by September 1939, the victims of Stalin's purges ran to 22 million. During the 1980s, the U.S. likewise armed and supplied Saddam's neo-Stalinist regime, then waging war with neighbouring Iran, thereby ensuring Saddam's hold on power would remain for the next 20 years.

Paul Jackson's right: History repeats itself with unenlightening regularity.

Orest Slepokura

The Sun's editorial comment: (On balance, no superpower has been as fair in its foreign policy as the U.S.)