Thomas Mott Osborne: “In 1941 President Roosevelt asked Winston Churchill what the new war should be called. Churchill replied that it should…”

“In 1941 President Roosevelt asked Winston Churchill what the new war should be called. Churchill replied that it should be called the "Unnecessary War," because throughout the 1930s Hitler had done this: he had declared his intent; he had written a book about it; he had built his arsenal and military; started the Holocaust; invaded Poland and Denmark; and refused diplomatic settlement. Most of Europe, and the United States in addition, hoped that Hitler would be satisfied with his latest conquest. So we sat and we watched, and we sat and we watched. Churchill's point was this: Hitler could have been stopped in 1935 or 1936 or maybe 1937 with few or no casualties at all. By 1941 he was poised to conquer the world; and as a result, 50 million people died. There are some parallels I think with our present situation, because Saddam Hussein has, number one, declared his intent to move against his neighbors. No one doubts his motives or intentions. He has killed thousands of his own people, which is very similar to the Holocaust. He has invaded Kuwait, similar to what Hitler did in Poland. He developed weapons of mass destruction, and he has used them. And he has defied all diplomatic resolution of the problem. One thing is different in 2002 from that which was present in 1941, and that is that today's weapons can kill hundreds of thousands of people, where in 1941 a bomb or a shell could maybe kill 100 or tens or whatever.”