Final Lesson on the Rhodesian Bush War

It probably won't, but who knows. And then once we're done with that, that'll wrap that up, and then we'll move back on to politics or remember, if you missed any of the previous four parts, they're all available on Iheartspotify, iTunes, go download the podcast. I give all the background and stuff like that, and always keep something else in mind whenever we do history on this show. If there is a topic that intrigues you, I just want to stress this.

There is a topic that intrigues you, I want to encourage you that I can't possibly present all the interesting, cool parts of it to you. Meaning, if I like the Rhodesian buschwart's about to be five hours basically of content, if you're fascinated by it. It can be common to think this, and I know because I used to do this. It can be common to think, Okay, well I got it, Jesse already told me about it. No, you're getting the

parts of it that are uniquely intriguing to me. And of course you have an overview now, a basic understanding of it. But I only have a basic understanding of it. If there are parts of it that intrigue you, any parts of it, go read or listen to podcasts or even audio books, like Jewish producer Chris does. If there's a subject that fascinates you that maybe we've introduced you to on this show, dig into it more yourself. There's so much more out there. I had to learn this myself.

I'd read one book on something and think, Okay, I got it. That's it. No, no, no, no, no, go read ten books on it. There's all kinds of different perspectives and angles and details and more things that will come to you if you're fascinated by it. Dig into it, all right. So we got this email Jesse, I'm really enjoying the history of the Rhodesian Bush War. We got a bunch of these. I'm glad you enjoying it. At the beginning of the century, I completed MSG training and

was headed to my first post. By the way, MSG is Marine Security Guard. Those are the guys who guard our embassies. The United States Marines guard the embassies. Anyway, headed to my first post, Zimbabwe. I had no idea where it was. To complicate matters, the schoolhouse map was from nineteen seventy nine, and I had no idea that it had been Rhodesia. The country was amazing, but I arrived just as the economy was collapsing. Not to give it away, one of the local guards told me that

he had fought alongside Robert Mugabi. I'll get to him in a bit. When I asked him what Mugabi was like, he gave me this haunting stare and simply said he is a cruel man. A very telling statement from his former comrade. Anyhow, keep up the good work. I love your show. Simplify. Yeah, I'll let the rest of that thing go. So now I mentioned yesterday where we are now, I won't recap it for you again. I've already done too much of that. Nineteen seventy four Mozambique, the country

east of Rhodesia. They had been friendly to Rhodesia because they were controlled by the Portuguese. Mozambique falls, Portugal pulls out. They say, hey, you can have it now. Mozambique is openly hostile to Rhodesia and the communist terrorists. They move into Mozambique in a huge way. Gigantic training camps are now open in Zambia and Mozambique. The Soviet Communists are

pouring money and munitions and training into these areas. The Chinese, the Chicoms are pouring money and munitions and training into these areas. Rhodesia has its enemies amassing on its borders. It has officially one friend left on the planet, and that friend is South Africa. South Africa kind of on the southwestern border of Rhodesia and South Africa was half their air force planes. South Africa would send men to help. But here is part of the problem with diplomacy. I

shouldn't say problem. It's just the way the world works. I shouldn't even call it a problem. Let's be adults here. It's the way that we're world works. Countries like the United Nations, or countries like the United States, Organizations like the United Nations, countries like the UK, they're not stupid. They understand that Rhodesia is still held up, at least in part by the South Africans. Well, that creates a problem for South Africa because South Africa is not powerful

enough to withstand America, the UN, the UK. So they start leaning hard on Rhodesia to change. And remember the change they want as you read it, as you dig into it, the change they've always wanted is one man, one vote, one man, one vote. Well, that would mean the Europeans would essentially have no power whatsoever, and the various African tribes would take over all positions of government. Now pause, by this time, that has our already happened

in several countries around Africa. And every place that happened, genocide, poverty, war and misery has followed. The world knows. Everybody knows. If you hand it back over, they're going to murder everybody and destroy every ounce of progress and it's going to be a disaster. And the Rhodesians know this as well. Remember we're talking a country that got going in eighteen ninety,

not that old. We're less than one hundred years old on this country here, and these Europeans managed to build it into the wealthiest, most prosperous country in Africa, modern paved roads, the works, and they're looking around at every other country in Africa fall and saying we're not giving it back. You're outside of your mind. But the idea was one man, one vote. Now, sorry, folks on Paul for a moment. We're going back to combat in a minute.

Don't worry about remembering these details. I've given you too many. There's a lot of details in the story. The head of Rhodesia is Ian Smith. Was his name, Ian Smith. He was trying and obviously failed in the end. And the different things you read will give you different opinions

of Ian Smith. I need to clarify that. But no matter which way you shake it, he was trying really hard to work with Britain on an agreement of some kind that would allow Rhodesia to remain Rhodesia while maybe giving Britain enough of what they wanted to kind of back off. Hey, back off? Now? Why is he so desperate for them to back off? Remember I told you before that Rhodesha was so wealthy and so prosperous that people were pouring in. Other Africans were pouring in looking

for opportunity, looking for work. Europeans were pouring in. Hey, this is a great place, fertile ground, modern, let's go have an adventure. Let's go, let's go to Rhodesia. By this point in the story, we're at the late seventies. By this point in the story, that has changed. Now farmers are being slaughtered. Now, if you get caught out in the hinterlands by the terrorist groups with the terrorist camps, they'll kill you, rape you, torture you. Now you had

to have an armored convoy. Let's say you and me, throw your fam in the car. I'll throw my fam in the car. We're gonna go camp in this weekend. We're gonna go out to the hinterlands. They'd call it the bush. We're gonna go out to the bush and we're gonna go fishing this weekend. You can't do that anymore in Rhodesia, unless, of course, you have a friend in the army, because it requires a military convoy to drive out to the hinterlands. Think of it this way.

Salisbury is the main city. It wasn't only Salisbury, but I'll make it easy. Salisbury the main city. Consider Salisbury your fortress of safety. It's four to five fortress of safety. That's fine. You leave that fortress, you might die. You go out to any of the rural lands in Rhodesia, you might die, and you might die ugly. Well. Remember, Rhodesia may have had an elite military, but still it was not a military. The country itself, Rhodesia was not

a military. It was a country, a country made up of people of men, women, young, old school children, churches. It was a civilization. And people who had previously come to Rhodesia in search of opportunity and adventure. They didn't want to live in a place where a landmine might incinerate your whole family when you were driving out for a picnic after church on a Sunday afternoon. Things have gotten so bad and Rhodesia Europeans are leaving, thousands of them.

They're done. The country is coming apart. We'll continue in a moment Jesse Kelly's Show on a Fantastic, Fantastic Tuesday. You can email us Jesse at Jesse kellyshow dot com. Back to our Rhodesian Bush War history. Now we need to pause on Rhodesia specifically for a moment, and we need to focus on the terrorists or gorillas, depending on

which side you're on. Here. As I told you before, there are two very very different communists terrorist groups, and they're different because they come from the two different African tribes that had previously controlled Rhodesia. I won't bother with naming the tribes again, that's just the detail. It doesn't matter. You can go dig into it. The tribes are known as different things anyway, but two different tribes historical hatred, slavery, slaughter,

historical hatred. Well, one of those tribes backed by the Soviets, the other tribe backed by the Chinese. But wait, there's more. Communists are horrible, aren't they. They're even horrible to each other. You see, there's actually an internal communist revolt that kind of slows things down for the Soviet back communists because they end up having their leaders arrested and tortured, and

then they have to arrest and torture the guy. It's don't My whole point in this was don't think that it's all hunky dory with the communist terrorists who are setting up these camps outside of Rhodesia, and in some cases in Rhodesia. It is not now back to being in Rhodesia. The Rhodesians are running out of stuff, and it really is. It's amazing how how how they were able to fix planes and fix helicopter with essentially what they had on hand. They're patching it all together. I

was reading one thing from a guy. He was Rhodesian light infantry, and he talked all the time about how he would have to stitch up his own combat gear because the gear they had was so worn out and frayed that you couldn't even store anything in it. Remember, these guys are toughest nails. Their military was excellent, but they're running out of things, and they're also hurting for

man power. Remember yesterday what I mentioned fire force. What it was Fireforce were these different quick reaction forces in the country and they would they would find terrorists, they'd get load up in the heroes, load up in the planes, take off towards the terrorists, try to surround them, envelop them and kill them. All sounds great, worked really well, was a genius idea, But the number of terrorists is seemingly endless. The number of Rhodesians is not. They don't

have the man power to suffer a broken ankle. These fire force units were supposed to be one hundred men, one hundred and twenty men. They were always going out with seventy. People were dying, people were getting hurt. And again, this is a tiny portion of society. The man power is limited. So let's discuss somebody briefly here, because he's going to matter. In fact, the email brought him up already, Robert Mugabi. People who have any understanding of history of

the region will know the name. Of course, certainly older people will know the name Robert Mugabi. Spoiler alert. He's the head of one of the communist groups, the Chinese backed, actually the Chinese backed communist group that will eventually conquer Rhodesia. Remember that he is already a monster, a butcher. He is known as a butcher. He has advanced Chinese training, not just on military stuff, on insurgencies, on everything. He is somebody widely known to be a bad, bad person.

I mentioned Ian Smith's negotiations with the British government, how they're trying to negotiate some sort of an agreement where the Rhodesians can the Europeans essentially can retain control, but of course with increased African representation and things like that. And one of the things the Rhodesians were passionate about was under no circumstances can Robert Mugabi take over this country.

This was something well known even with the other terrorists, the Soviet back terrorists, even they knew, Oh, Robert Mugabi, that would probably be bad. He definitely seems like a genocidal madman who will kill and torture everybody. We should probably avoid that. Now, what kind of things are the Rhodesians doing. Some of these things you may love, some may not. I mentioned yesterday. They're putting up their own

land mines, lots of them. They are draining the rural areas because now that the Communists are able to come into Rhodesia, in the rural areas, the Communists are recruiting Rhodesians, Black African Rhodesians, recruiting them from inside the country. And by the way, because they're communists, it's not always lovely recruit recruitment recruitment with US signing bonuses and candy canes for everybody. They operated in much the same way the

Vietcong operated. They would walk into your African village and pull the village elder in the village leader and ask him for twenty young men to join the communist cause. And if he said no, they gather the whole village around and they carve his guts out while he's still alive in front of everybody, rape all the women, and chop people's head off. It's horrible. It's just human rights abuses like you can't possibly imagine. Well, now this is

making a bad problem even worse for the Rhodesians. They're having internal problems, and so they start doing things like I already mentioned, draining these areas. They're not letting people stay there anymore. Now they're having things like curfews where if they catch you out after a certain hour, you die. Period. Well, what's going to happen? Then you're going to eventually kill innocent people, and then that's going to make international news.

They're just swimming against the tide. So they eventually do pull off one of the cooler military things I've ever heard in my life that was awesome and wonderful in a complete and total disaster. I will explain what that is in a moment. Jesse Kelly show on a Fantastic Tuesday going over the final part of the Rhodesian bush War. If you miss to any of the others, iHeart spotify iTunes. So by now I mentioned already the Rhodesians are having to take extreme measures, and keep in mind, I don't

want to present them as fluffy and cuddly. They're doing some torturing themselves. They are, and they're doing things that would make you probably squeamish. For instance, they're selling cigarettes, clothing to the communist gorillas that's poisoned, poisoning them. These are the kinds of things they're doing. Now I mentioned Mozambique and how big of a problem Mozambique was. These huge communist training camps were in Mozambique. Now there's a unit,

and I read a wonderful book. Three SIPs of Gin is the name of the book. Three SIPs of Gin is the name of the book. Three SIPs of Gin is the name of the book. Anyway, about this unit I've mentioned before, called the Cellas Scouts or Selu Scouts. They were in elite unit, as I mentioned, more than half of them, and that's going to matter for Operation Elan's purposes. More than half of them were Black Africans.

Many of those Black Africans were actually recruits. They had been communists and then they got recruited and they joined the cellas scouts. This unit did more things that I could ever lay out than I even know. I mean, I've only read a few books on the subject. They were always tracking people. They were doing they were posing as warlords, they were poisoning cigarettes. They were the clandestine find a way to find them and kill them unit, and they came up with an operation. Uh gutsy is

just one way you would describe it. You see, there was this large communist training camp in Mozambique. Here is what happened. These sellers scouts knew when the troops would gather for formation. I believe there were a couple thousand troops when they would gather for formation in this space in Mozambique. Here's what they did. They gathered up in a bunch of armored cars. Armored cars designed armored cars that were the same cars that the terrorists would be using.

Keep in mind cars that had gigantic machine guns on them. I won't break down the details of these machine guns. Also, cars that it's hard to see inside an armored car,

is it not. These Sellu scouts used their black members and they put terrorist uniforms on them, so they looked like the communists terrorists, and those were the ones who were the drivers and the turret gunners, of course, And they drive up to the gate of this communist training camp in Mozambique while all the terrorists are on the parade ground for formation, and of course they get stopped at the gate. The communist said, wow, what are you doing here? And they pull that thing you've seen in

the movies a thousand times. They say, I'll have you arrested. What are you doing stopping me? You peon, I'm general whatever, I'm colonel whatever. I'll cut your hands off. Of course it's some I'm sure it's some twenty year old idiot kid at the gate. Well, sorry, you guys, go ahead. They drive these armored vehicles into the base. They are outnumbered on this base sixty to one. They are not only outnumbered sixty to one. May I repeat myself, they

are in a totally different country. They are in Mozambique, they are not in Rhodesia. They pull the armored vehicles with the heavy machine guns onto the parade ground. The troops who are on the parade ground, remember there's a couple thousand of them, They want to know what's going on.

They began to gather around the armored vehicles, at which point in time the signal is given and the heavy machine guns open fire on the defenseless terrorists on the parade ground and they start chopping these guys up like cord. They slaughter the African terrorists, no deaths on behalf of the cellas scouts. When they've done what they can do, they peel rubber in their armored cars and drive out

of the base all the way back to Rhodesia. One of the most bold, brilliant military actions I have ever heard of in my entire life. A humongous success right and of course widely celebrated in Rhodesia. But as we have discussed, there's always a political aspect to war. Always. I don't like it, you don't like it. Kill the enemy is all that matters, but that's not real life. Operation Eland as it is called, was a humongous military success, but at this point in history, it is a diplomatic,

a political disaster. Rhodesia is already coming apart. It is politically on the outs with the rest of the world, and Jimmy Carter's President of the United States of America. Operation eland or deifies the entire planet. Think about it. A bunch of unarmed Africans. And of course the Communists say they were all refugees. They don't say any of these guys were terrorists or soldiers or gorillas. They act like the Rhodesians rode in and mowed down a bunch

of women and children. Now what's the one friend Rhodesia has left on the planet South Africa. After Operation eland the world comes down so hard on South Africa. South Africa says, hey, Rhodesia, we're out. You are on your own. And they leave, and they take their men, and they take their planes and they bail. Now it's over, I mean at this exact moment. It doesn't end, but this

ends Rhodesia. They are a land locked country where the modern countries of the world have declared them to be the enemy, and physically every country now on their border is hostile to them. Not only no more trade, most of the countries on their border are harboring and training and supplying terrorists pouring into their country. Now they know it's over, the only question is what do you do? So they came up with a couple different plans. There

was one plan. One plan was to essentially leave the country and burn down and destroy all the infrastructure on the way out, essentially fight a rearguard action down to South Africa where you'll leave and just burn but you know, fill up, put concrete in every toilet, rip up every street, leave nothing for the Africans. But what happens is they agree to have an election, a one man, one vote style election the Brits had been pushing for from the

very very beginning. Well, how do communists operate elections here in the United States of America? How'd that twenty twenty election go? How do you think Robert Mugabi and his political party, how exactly do you think they're going to handle an election in Rhodesia. Yeah, let me go ahead and spoil it for you, Robert Mugaby with some uh

shady dealings, if you will takes power in Rhodesia. Now we'll just do a couple more sentences on this, thirty more seconds, because I think you already know how it goes. From here. It doesn't go very well. All right, hang on, what is the Jesse Kelisha, Oh, final segment of the Jesse Kelly Show on this hour. Don't worry, we still have an entire other hour. It's just going to be our final segment on the Rhodesian Bush War. Fast forward.

We finally have peace in Rhodesia. Peace doesn't go very well. Robert Mugabe and his communists take over the government. Now I need to clarify. I said there were a couple different plans. The Europeans had. One of those plans actually involved now performing a military coup and killing them all. But they decided to set those plans aside and they walked away. But not all Europeans walked away. And I know, given what we're going to know here in a moment,

that probably sounds bonkers. Hey, some angry communists, some murderous time, it just took over. Why would you stay? Let's remember these are real people, And let's remember you might be on your third generation in your family fall in Rhodesia. Maybe your grandfather came here eighty years ago. It's easy looking back down. It's easy for you, it's easy for me to say, hey, you got to get out. That may be everything you have it maybe everything you've ever known.

I mean, you might be fifty five years old. What are you gonna do? Go start over. A lot of Europeans chose to stay, and Robert Mugabi, who understood the world was watching him now, initially tried to play it off as if he was just going to be a pretty fair guy. Still allowed a few Europeans to be represented in the government, didn't immediately start the purges. But he's a communist. What do communists do with power? Do you think they're different than our than our communists? What

do they do? They do two things. They reward their friends and they punish their enemies. Robert Mugabi begins to fill up the government met with committed communists. Robert Mugabi also he believes he has two sets of enemies in the country, not just the white Europeans. Remember those Soviet backed gorillas, the Soviet back terrorists. Remember how they were from a different tribe than Mugabi. Mugabi starts to get a little bit stronger in his rhetoric of these people

are the enemy. These people are the reason things aren't working well, because of course, surprise, surprise, things start to fall apart. The second you hand the country to the communists. Robert Mugabi starts to genocide the opposing tribe. Robert Mugabi starts to do things like this. Farmer farmer or white European farmer is well aware that white European farms have been attacked, few of them lately. Anyway, farmer feels that

his family may be in danger. He may be in danger, so he sends his wife and children into town, into Salisbury or somewhere like that, where he thinks they'll be safe. And then he wakes up one night to find his home is surrounded by gangs with machetes and axes, gangs that have been sent there by Robert Mugabi. He calls his mother, tells mom what's happening, essentially tells her goodbye. His mother, as any mother would, hangs up the phone a bit distraught and calls the police. Except who do

you think controls the police? Now? In what is now Zimbabwe? Who do you think controls the police? Remember what happens in our big cities now with these big city police chiefs. The police don't even answer the phone. That man ends up being hacked to death, shot to death inside of

his home. This became an extremely common tale as Zimbabwe slowly but surely descended into what all communist countries descend into, a one party state full of torture, death, genocide, and now the Jewel of Africa, the wealthiest, most prosperous country in Africa, now makes the Jesse Kelly Show Crappiest Country in the World tournament. All it took was twenty thirty years of communist rule to destroy everything civilized people had built. It is an insanely fascinating tale, a sad tale, if

we're being honest, isn't it sad? There are people who are passionate about Rhodesia. Keep in mind, I remember I teased yesterday that we've got a guy who was there. He's going to actually join us tomorrow. We've reached out to him courtesy of a listener of the show, actually a Navy seal listener of the show, which is really cool. Center five Brother Navy Seal listener of the show knows a veteran of the Rhodesian Bush War, and he's going

to join us tomorrow. Probably just be a brief little thing. I just want to touch base with him on it. I want, I want to hear from him. I haven't talked to him yet. Jewish producer Chris As I haven't. I'm going to talk to him. We'll just get his perspective on it. But are there are Rhodesians, many of them still alive today, who remember it and it is such a point of sorrow. And there are people who are just passionate about it, who think about it, and

it's just such a point of sorrow. And I really thought it would be an appropriate lesson for where we are and what happens if you don't stop communist insurgents from taking over your country, from occupying the positions of power, they will bring nothing but death and misery in the end. And who is better off? Now? Who's better off? I'd love to ask the United Nations and Britain, in all these countries that helped doom Rhodesia, are you proud of

yourself right now? There was a wonderful place, not just for white Europeans, for Black Africans, employment, civilization, modern medicine, and you had to rip it away from them with your race activism, and now people starve to death, regularly living below the poverty line, hospitals that don't have any medicine. That's what happens. A very very sad tale, but a very fascinating tale. And like I said in the beginning,

we're going to get back to politics now. Like I said in the beginning, if this fascinates you, and according to your emails, it most certainly does. If this fascinate you, go pick up a book on it, an audiobook on it. I mentioned a couple books that I read just because they were my favorites. But there are so many. There are fascinating YouTube channels. People have done podcasts with these veterans. You can go so much more in depth than I went into. I gave you the thirty thousand foot view.

If this war, If this conflict fascinates you, look into it. I didn't even go into all the mercenaries that came over and fought with them, including Americans, Vietnam veterans, all kinds of people fascinating. Anyway, let's talk about a healthcare problem. We may have some emails letting juveniles out of prison and more. Thanks