"Democratic peoples are not immune to blood lust"

"Governments accountable to their people do not attack each other," said Bush.

This may come as a surprise to descendants of those who fought for Southern independence from 1861 to 1865. Does Bush think Mr. Lincoln's government or those of the CSA, the Confederate States of America, were not "accountable" to their people? Yet 600,000 Americans died in that war between two democratic republics. (...)

In 1914, the most democratic nations in Europe plunged into the bloodiest war in history. Free people in European capitals cheered lustily as their sons marched off to die.

Democratic peoples are not immune to blood lust." The Democracy Worshipper by Patrick J. Buchanan

Adenda: Recomendável para quem gosta de dar lições de política externa-defesa citando "Muniche" -

"President Bush began by paying tribute to the founding father of Czech democracy. "Nine decades ago, Tomas Masaryk proclaimed Czechoslovakia's independence based on the 'ideals of democracy.'"

Well, that may be what the Masaryk said, but it is not exactly what he did. In 1918, he did indeed proclaim the independence of Czechoslovakia, confirmed by the Allies at Paris. But inside the new Czechoslovakia, built on the "ideals of democracy," were 3 million dissident Germans who wished to remain with Austria and half a million Hungarians who wished to remain with Hungary. Many Catholic Slovaks had wanted to remain with Catholic Hungary. Against their will, all had been consigned to Masaryk's Czech-dominated nation.

Query for Bush? If 3 million Germans were put under alien rule without their consent and against their will, and they wished to exercise their right of self-determination, as preached by Woodrow Wilson, did they not have a right to secede peacefully and join their German kinsmen?

Because that is what Munich was all about.

Between 1938 and 1939, dissident Germans, Slovaks, Poles, Hungarians and Ruthenes – abetted by Berlin, Warsaw and Budapest – broke free of Masaryk's multinational democracy. Rather than let them secede from Prague, Churchill thought Britain should go to war.

Was Winston right, or were the Sudeten Germans right? In 1945, liberated Czechoslovakia solved its dissident German problem by wholesale ethnic cleansing."

Nota: E foi assim que o problema ficou resolvido no pós-WWII. Os "alemães" Sudetas queriam ficar com os Habsburgos, mas estes (tal como com Kaiser) foram intencionalmente conduzidos para a porta de saída da história.

Não era preciso ser especialmente dotado para perceber que sem os Habsburgs e o Império Austro-Húngaro, o destino de todos os alemães (incluindo os alemães austriacos) seria a ... Alemanha - a grande questão de séculos sobre a Grande Alemanha (se sob o domínio dos Habsburgs ou sob o domínio da Prússia) tinha ficado resolvida (e diga-se que quer Bismarck quer os sucessivos Reis da Prússia nunca pretenderam unificar uma Grande Alemanha... as repúblicas é que costumam ter sonhos construtivistas e a falta de pudor para os realizar...sem ser pelo meio bem mais pacífico e tradicional do casamento de monarcas). Um mimo de Woodrow Wilson a que se juntou a justiça dos Impérios vencedores. Depois foi o que se viu, as repúblicas caiem no fascismo dado a retórica de combater as injustiças da WWI (incluindo a Itália a quem foi recusado os espólios prometidos pela sua entrada em favor dos "Aliados"). E assim chega Hitler a Muniche onde 3 milhões de Sudetas querem ser alemães, e onde curiosamente também a Polónia e a Hungria reivindicam e conseguem território onde estavam as suas minorias. Fazer a guerra pelos Sudetas que queriam ser Alemães? Pois a guerra acabou a fazer-se mais tarde e o problema Sudeta foi resolvido...sem dúvida. Por ethnic cleasing. Assim um pouco como começar a fazer guerra por causa da Polónia e ver onde a Polónia acabou.