News-Record.com

This case has been made before by paleoconservatives (and some paleolibertarians, as well). It's an interesting argument, and regardless of how one regards the events of WWII, it points to how seven years of utter brutality and carnage on an unprecedented scale (not even preceded in terms of scale by its, er, predecessor) was not limited to one side. Also, it's hard to fathom how we've come to call this a "good" war, except in terms of stopping at least one demicidal power (while encouraging at least one other).
Cohen's argument is largely nonexistent, however, simply because no one can say what would have happened had Hitler been "stopped" earlier. Stopped where, exactly? How? At what cost in terms of other alliances? Would stopping him in Poland or France have changed Germany's plans for Barbarossa, to the extent that the Non-Alignment Pact would've held -- or worse, a Soviet-Nazi bloc would've formed, with both powers dividing the spoils? Neither Cohen nor anyone else can say. But we can agree that it could've been even worse than it was, and anything that would've encouraged German-Soviet cooperation would've been an unmitigated disaster for almost all of Europe and much of Asia. As it was, the non-war casualty dead (i.e., those simply murdered by those two governments, omitting those killed in or by battle) stopped at between 50 and 80 million.
The argument against intervention usually points to Roosevelt's machinations to get us into war -- undeniably, we were actively and militarily supporting the British before we entered the war, which is usually considered an act of aggression itself; and we did engineer an oil embargo against the Japanese in reaction to their imperialist conquests. (The Japanese ambassador to the League of Nations pointed out years before that the Japanese were only engaged in what the Europeans and Americans had been doing all along.)
None of this, of course, justifies what the Nazis or the Imperial Japanese armies, their governments, and their supporters did. Nothing could possibly justify mass murder, torture far worse than anything we hear about in the news now, and the horrors of mechanized warfare. It does provide a bit of a welcome bromide to the endless orgy of WWII worship in this country. Whether we entered rightly or wrongly, it was a horrifying war, and our hands are only relatively clean.

' . . . because the only way to stop the killing was to stop the killers."

This is the entire point of a just war: intervention to stop a very real and present danger to the homeland from an unrelenting, murderous aggressor. We did, understandably, try to avoid WW II; but in the end, the danger - though far away - was obviously going to reach us sooner or later. And, of course, ALL wars are lumbering, unpredictable, careening bandwagons of chaos and ruin – as is Iraq. In the end, it is a miracle that wars are finally won. But better win than lose.

War is the old sin nature gone completely haywire, spewing out the worst of all human potentialities. It is corporate killing; that is, national tempers aroused to the point of international killing and maiming. After all, wars “break out” or “erupt;” they do not generally just ease into existence.

Unfortunately, they are sometimes necessary to protect and defend. But they are also a morass of propaganda, deceit and subterfuge – all of which simply goes along with massive eruptions of sin and darkness. For war IS indeed hell on earth.

But those who fight and die bravely for hearth and home are truly a nation’s heroes. Even in the midst of death, horror and tragedy, nobility of devotion and character shines forth. But it is the kind of nobility we should never want, seek, or promote. I would take out an intruder if he tried to kill my wife and children only out of forced necessity. But when necessity comes, we must not shirk our duty.

The questions and issues, pro and con, regarding Israel and Palestine, neocons, jihadism, WMDs, etc. may continue ad infinitum, but the issue of wounded and dead heroes can only elicit the most ardent love and gratitude from a wounded, still free, nation. We must never forget, regardless of the complications, that we were viciously attacked, with the intent to finish the job, then and now. Not to oppose this wave of death and conquest would be utterly remiss and cowardly.