Barack Obama suggests we need to consider moral issues in intervening with combat forces. He mentions intervening in the Holocaust and how we should have done that.

Um Senator, we did intervene in the Holocaust. It was called World War II.

America’s involvement in WWII had nothing to do with the Holocaust. We joined WWII formally because Japan attacked us and we gave informal help before because our ally, England, was being bombed. There was some knowledge of the extermination of Jews by our leadership, but it was never elevated to a reason for war for numerous reasons. Post-WWI America was very non-interventionist, there was a strong strain of anti-semitism in America, and we did not know the full extent of the Holocaust.

Eventually the allies did liberate the Jewish people and it became one of the shining moments in American history for which we can all be proud. But that’s not why we got involved in WWII.

I know this because I’ve read a few history books and I didn’t sleep through history class in school.