Obama & FDR --- Who Was in Charge of the War Department during WW2 & the Holocaust?

In the Spring of election year, a young president's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of reelection. As in 2008, Obama is sweet-talking Jews, some of whom have reportedly escaped from the Democratic Party's corral because of his anti-Israel policies since his inauguration in 2009. He sweet-talked Armenian-Americans too in 2008. Once elected of course, he violated his solemn promise to them to recognize the Armenian genocide. Armenians too have escaped from the corral.

In his efforts to hold on to Jewish and other voters, Mr Promise Breaker has compared himself and had himself compared to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, long a hero of the Democratic Party.
But if the comparison is valid, should it be seen as a merit or demerit of Obama?

That brings us to the AIPAC Conference more than a month ago. In his speech there, Prime Minister Netanyahu brought up a historic fact not known to the general public nor even to many people who consider themselves well-informed. This was the rejection by the US War Department in 1944 of a request by a Jewish organization, the World Jewish Congress, to bomb the crematoria at Auschwitz [Oswiecim in Polish] and the railway lines leading there. Such actions would have significantly delayed the ongoing mass murder process. Here is the relevant excerpt from Netanyahu's speech:

Some commentators would have you believe that stopping Iran from getting the bomb is more dangerous than letting Iran have the bomb.

They say that a military confrontation with Iran would undermine the efforts already underway, that it would be ineffective, and that it would provoke even more vindictive action by Iran. I’ve heard these arguments before. In fact, I’ve read them before. In my desk, I have copies of an exchange of letters between the World Jewish Congress and the US War Department. The year was 1944. The World Jewish Congress implored the American government to bomb Auschwitz. The reply came five days later. I want to read it to you. Such an operation could be executed only by diverting considerable air support essential to the success of our forces elsewhere…..and in any case would be of such doubtful efficacy that it would not warrant the use of our resources….And here’s the most remarkable sentence of all. And I quote: Such an effort might provoke even more vindictive action by the Germans. Think about that – “even more vindictive action” — than the Holocaust. [full text of speech here-- texts of letters to & from War Dept here]

Now just who was in charge of the executive branch of the US Government at that time, 1944? Who was ultimately responsible for the conduct of the war and for the setting of war aims? Who was the commander-in-chief of US armed forces in WW2? Yes, it was none other than the same Franklin Delano Roosevelt to whom Obama and his flunkeys compare him in order to place him on the same pedestal of idolization on which FDR has unjustly remained since his death. If the comparison is valid, it is not to Obama's credit.

This is not meant as an endorsement of Republicans. The president at the time of the Holocaust was not a Republican, however, but a Democrat. He was indeed idolized by millions of Americans including most Jews at the time. We can't know what a Republican president would have done if there had been one at the time. We do know that representatives and senators of both the Democratic & Republican parties were sympathetic to the Jews during the Shoah. One of the notable ones being Hugh Scott, a Republican representative from Pennsylvania, later a senator. Scott was instrumental in bringing news of the Holocaust to the American public through a discussion with a volunteer with the Bergson Group to whom Scott provided little known information. Yet the Dulles family, Allen, John Foster and Eleanor, who held influential offices in the US Government and were also Republicans, were not sympathetic. But clearly, Jews cannot trust Democrats, especially when their lips overflow with generalities and platitudes about stopping atrocities and genocide.