Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

This is an interesting exchange between the Nazi Hermann Goring (Commander of the Luftwaffe, the German Air Force) and Gustave Mark Gilbert (an American psychologist who was assigned to assess the mental state of the Nazis at Nuremberg).

Göring: Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the populace along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.

Gilbert: However, there is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.

(RC: But wait! That was true when Gilbert said it, but the last time the US Congress declared war was at the onset of World War II. The war that immediately followed it was the Korean War, and that one, Truman put us into all by himself. Unconstitutionally, he unilaterally committed the United States to war, a war in which 54,000 Americans died. And every President since then has taken a cue from Truman and gone to war on his own discretion, without obtaining a Declaration of War from Congress. It's as though the US Constitution was amended without going to the trouble of getting an amendment passed- which is very hard to do.)   
  
Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.