Rhodesian Bush War

night in the night before. You gotta go download the podcast if you want that. I think you will find it helpful. Not a requirement at all to understand kind of where we're at now where we pick up today, but I think it would be incredibly helpful. Now, let's talk about the state of Rhodesia. Let's first talk about voting, shall we. I posed a question to you last night at the end of our little history segment. I posed a question to you about us, about our country, your country,

my country, Who should be able to vote? And I think we agreed last night that there should be some restrictions. Right. We may disagree on what those restrictions might be. But you don't want ten year olds to have a vote, right. You don't want felons sitting in the joint getting ready to go to the electric chair tomorrow. You don't want them to have a vote. Right. You don't want illegals to vote to you. Okay, So no matter what you agree, there should be some restrictions. Now, I'm going to play

you something. I know we're doing history, but I'm going to play you something I played at last hour. Here's Shri Indiana Jones of Michigan.

in any modern American city. All the rest of Africa, not all of it, but most of the rest of Africa living in backwards conditions and men and there's this jewel in Rhodesia. So who got to pick the government

of Rhodesia. Well, there were changes over time, by the way, but in general you had to qualify to vote, and contrary to what all the do gooder commis around the world said at the time, part of the qualification was not the color of your skin, but there were literacy requirements, property qualifications, you had to be a subject of the British Empire. There were things, and I don't want to get too specific, because they changed. You know, pre nineteen

sixty one they were more strict than Rhodesia. Trying to try to roll back some things started to ease those restrictions. But you know, on the voting rolls, for instance, in nineteen sixty one there were ninety five thousand white people who were able to vote and there were twenty two

hundred black apps Fricans who were able to vote. It was not barring any skin color, but because the qualifications were what they were, because there were standards, a large percentage of the white Europeans in Rhodesia could vote and a very small percentage of the Black Africans could vote. Now that sounds extremely discriminatory, doesn't it. That sounds wrong. Surely everybody who reaches the age of eighteen should have

a say in the government, right. And the reason I bring this up is it's going to become a central theme of our story. Rhodesia didn't see it that way. Rhodesia enjoyed its standard of living, enjoyed the kind of country it was. But here's a problem, you see, and it's a big problem. You've heard of the Labor government, the Labor Party, I should say, of Britain. I've told you before, that's their Democrats, that's their Communist Party. Those

are the ones who run Britain. Now, that's why they're massively importing Muslims from all over the planet to form rape gangs, to pillage the British women. The Labor Party, well in the nineteen sixties, there are things going on globally that are going to essentially doom Rhodesia in the end, and one of those things is the Labor Party was running things in Britain. Combine that with this, the airfingers quote civil rights movement globally is really really reaching its peak.

Now why did I say airfingers quote Because the civil rights movement surely was only good, right, and I think you would agree with me that, Yeah, it's probably not great to have black people eating at different restaurants, and that's not a great way to run society. That's not a just way to run society. The reason I gave the airfingers quote thing on it was, well, remember what we talked about last hour. I've spoken before about this many times. Let me use the example I've used before

in Montana in the Rocky Mountains. If you hike through the Rocky Mountains in an area full of boulders, you will inevitably come across one that looks It looks like God pulled out his sword and sliced it in half. It's not just broken, it's this clean, smooth break. It's odd looking. We're talking about a boulder the size of your car sliced in two. Only God didn't use his sword. You see, over time that boulder developed a little crack, not big, you might not even really see it with

your eye, a little crack. What happened from there? Water, inevitably, maybe it's snow melting, maybe it's rain. Water would get in it, and then one night the temperature would drop to such a degree that water would freeze. When water freezes its spans, when it expanded, pop the rock shattered into This is exactly what communists do in every single society. They find existing cracks, legitimate cracks, by the way, oftentimes

legitimate cracks. They find the cracks in your society, They get inside of that crack and they try to freeze it to shatter the society. And the global communists most definitely, the Soviets recognize the civil rights movement, not just in America but other places, but the civil rights movement as an incredible opportunity for them to shatter the country, and they got involved in it. They were very focused about being involved in it. They viewed it as an opportunity

to break America, to break Western civilization. This was going on in many different countries in the nineteen sixties. Now I already laid out the government of Rhodesia at the time. How do you think their government, how do you think that's landing with the global civil rights do gooders on the planet. Let me spoil it for you. It ain't landing well and Britain decides they want to do something about it.

has their Communists as well have our Democrats. They have their Labor Party, the Labor government in Britain. They don't like the look of Rhodesia right now. Yeah, of course it's wealthy, it's prosperous, it's clean, it's wonderful. But not everyone gets to vote. In fact, not very many Black Africans get to vote. Lots of white Europeans get to vote, and so they start pushing. Remember at this point, Rhodesia is a British colony. I cannot stress that enough. A

British colony, meaning they are under the British crown. Britain says, uh, how about one man, one vote, everyone gets to vote. Well, the government, the people of Rhodesia, they understandably said, excuse me, look around at Africa. Do you have any idea what's going to happen if we allow everybody to have a vote with no property requirements and know nothing of it. Do you understand what will happen here? The whole place will be over all this prosperity. The communists didn't want

to hear it. One man, one vote, one man, one vote, over and over and over and over again. Now Rhodesha has to make a choice. And keep in mind that I'm really skipping over some boring political negotiations. But Rhodesia's government they were trying as hard as they could to do whatever they had to do to work with Britain, so they didn't have to do well what they're about to do, meaning in nineteen sixty one they even changed

how they do the voting. They didn't change it completely, but they opened it up a little bit more, kind of introduced tiers to it. You could be in the A tier. The beat again their work. They're trying to massage the situation without giving up their country. Britain did not want to hear it. Communists in Britain did not want to hear it, and they said, no, you will do this, and so Rhodesia they rebelled. There's no other way to put it. In nineteen sixty five, rhodesha said, yeah,

we're not a British colony anymore. Now we're ours, We're Rhodesia, we're independent and this is how we're going to run things. Now. Now pause for a second. You have probably heard of the SAS before, the Special Air Service. If you have not, you should know that that is the British version of the Navy Seals, and in fact they came about really because of the British fighting in Northern Africa. They were the guys parachuting behind enemy lines doing all kinds of

you know, special operations stuff. They are to this day, bad to the bone, bad dudes. The British SAS well. Up to this point, remember we're in the sixties Jijia's military. They would work hand in hand with Britain's military because again it's a British colony, and Rhodesia had an SAS as well that trained with the British sas. Super super bad dudes. You get what I'm saying. Rhodesia declares independence

in nineteen sixty five. Britain is so angry about this, they actually consider a military response to the open rebellion of the Rhodesian country of the Rhodesian government, and they approached the British sas and start talking to them about it. The British SAS had such a level of respect for the Rhodesians they had trained with and worked with, the British government essentially faced a mutiny from within their own high level sas. The guys weren't going to go, Nah,

I'm good, I'm not. You want me to attack Rhodesia. Nah, Now you got to do something. If you're the British government, right, you can't let open rebellion go, especially these white racists in Rhodesia. And again, I want to remind you of something I reminded you of last night. Over half of the Rhodesian army was Black Africans. This is not a white versus black thing. How it was sold to the planet. Black Africans died with their European brothers in this war.

Europeans would give their lives to save Black Africans in this war. This wasn't some Naxi that's not at all. How it was. Yes, there were fewer black voters, no question about it. It was not a white versus black thing. Anyway, Britain has to do something. So they essentially get the world, that really most of the civilized world, to sanction Rhodesia. This is a country that is landlocked. Keep in mind they have no access to water, anything like that. Britain

slaps sanctions strict ones on Rhodesia. Now, this would normally be about the end of any landlocked country, but Rhodesia, to their credit, they had a couple friends and those friends happen to be neighbors. We'll talk about those friends some combat things in a moment. It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a fantastic, fantastic Thursday. Remember to send in your ask Doctor Jesse questions for tomorrow. Remember you can download the show iheard Spotify iTunes. Let's get back

to the story here. Nineteen sixty five, Rhodesha declares it's independence. Britain is upset, to put it mildly, they get the rest of the world and they themselves slap crippling sanctions on Rhodesia, or I should say what should be crippling sanctions on Rhodesia. But Rhodesia has a couple of friends. Now we need to do something that I did with you the first night, but we're probably going to do this a couple more times because you have to visualize this.

You don't have to look at a map. You can, but I want you to draw a circle in your mind, or maybe you can draw one if you're a visual person. I want you to make this a clock. Okay, so it's a clock. Now from twelve o'clock to six o'clock. That's obviously half the clock. There is a country known as Mozambique, all right, Mozambique. From twelve o'clock over to let's call it ten o'clock, there is a country known as Zambia. All right. From six o'clock to about eight

o'clock there is South Africa. Why am I doing this slame clock thing? Because it matters so much for our story South Africa. We will begin there. South Africa and Rhodesia are as tight as tight can get. There are so many South Africans in Rhodesia. They love each other, they work together, they have similar forms of They our best, best, best freaking friends. As far as countries go. South Africa

is a friend. When these sanctions get slapped on Rhodesia, South Africa steps up and says, hey, we got you, sell us your stuff. We'll continue to trade with each other. South Africa also has and this will definitely matter for our story throughout our story. They have that wonderful, wonderful liquid gold known as oil. Keep Rhodesia's well supplied with oil. They have a friend. Now, let's go to Mozambique. Remember the twelve o'clock to six o'clock, big, big border with Rhodesia.

They're also friendly because Mozambique at this point, and this will change. Spoiler alert, this is going to change. Mozambique is run by the Portuguese, all right, the Portuguese Rhodesia. They get along. They are still working with each other, trading. Zambia the country in the northwest forget about them. We are going to get to them. They're going to be featured here shortly. But Rhodesha has friends. What's the result of this, They declare independence. All these sanctions they're supposed

to be bankrupted, Rhodesia's flourishing, flourishing. They went independent and they're getting along really, really well. Now we have to go globally again, because this will matter for the rest of our story. Communists, it's a religion of destruction and domination. As we've talked about so many times before, communism was never supposed to be about any one country. Communism was

always designed, always pushed as being a global thing. At this point in history, the Soviet Union is chernin and burning, China chernin and burning. These are communist countries and they are very very interested in spreading their communism globally. And they are then, just as they are now, very very interested in the continent of Africa. Africa is gigantic, it is strategically located. They have all kinds of resources that every country wants. The communist nations on the planet want Africa,

and they want all of it. And they recognize there's an opportunity here. We have this country called Rhodesia. Britain has cut them off. And there's a crack, isn't there. We're ready to discuss that crack. There are all kinds of little villages and African reservations, essentially in Rhodesia, some black Africans who have not had a standard of living equal to the white Europeans. There's enough of a crack there that can be exploited. And now terrorism starts. Terrorism

mainly from Zambia. Zambia. Remember it's that twelve o'clock to ten o'clock the northwestern border, that's Zambia. The Soviets and the Chinese both form groups African communists, African nationalists, whatever word you want to put on it, African groups, and they decide they're going to have a go at conquering Rhodesia. And they weren't even that subtle about it. The Soviets freaking gave them tanks. They would send advisors, Chinese advisors,

Soviet advisors. How involved are the Soviets in Chinese and this will matter for the rest of our story. They would take African leaders and they would ship them to places like the Soviet Union, like China, like East Germany, and they would ship them there for training. And I mean in depth training, not just weapons training, not just battle tactics. I'm talking about insurgency tactics, communist tactics. How do you infect a place, how do you infiltrate a place?

How do you destroy a place? Training camps for the Africans put on by the Soviets and the Chinese, and the poor Rhodesians don't even understand what is about to come their way, but they do. The night a white farmer nineteen sixty six, a white farmer and his wife, they are ambushed and slaughtered on their farm. I need to set up something here. I already mentioned. Rhodesia is a huge country. I mentioned that last night, not so much to night. This is a very very big place.

It's not a small country. And they of course have these cities, these urban areas, but as I've said, farming, agriculture. It's such a wonderful land for that. It's just made for that. It was a huge part of their economy, huge part of what they did. And there were these huge farms that the Europeans ran and owned, and they had of course Africans working on their Black Africans working with them, things like that. But these farms, as you can imagine, you can't put a farm in the middle

of the city. They are rural, rural farm. They're out there, they're in the hinterlands. They're not right next to the cop shop. This creates a security nightmare for Rhodesian farmers. There will come a day we're not there yet in our story where farmers will have twelve foot high security fences all around their homes because they were worried their kids couldn't go to the yard without a bunch of gorillas chopping them up with machetes. That's how dangerous this

situation is. But they don't know this yet, right because the terror hasn't started. Well, the terror just began nineteen sixty six, white farmer and his wife butchered, butchered, and the Communists in Africa, in the Soviet Union in China, they want the terror to increase, and they found I was about to say an unlikely ally, but anyone even vaguely familiar with our political situation in the United States of America will understand it's the most likely ally in

the world, wouldn't you know it? Young college girls started to help the international communists smuggle in weapons they could use to commit acts of terror. As I have said many times, there is no more vicious, violent communist on the planet than the liberal white woman. It's just a fact. So we will continue with all this in a moment.

the Chinese. Don't worry about making sure you know Who's back by who, Zapu backed by the Soviets, Zanu backed by the Chinese. These organizations, as I said, are being trained by the Soviets in the Chinese in infiltration tactics. Rhodesia is not fully aware of it yet, but war has already been declared on them by the Soviets in the Chinese, who want to make Rhodesia a communist country, and they start by sending rebels over the border. In fact, let me give you a summary of how this war

is going to go. Not to spoil the ending, but you probably get it by now. Let me give you a summary of how this war is going to go. There aren't that many white Europeans in Rhodesia, right, two hundred thousand, give or take two hundred thousand of them. It's not that big of a military. Twenty thousand again, give or take. It's going to depend on the time

period twenty thousand. In the military, the Communists are going to start setting up shop in the countries around Rhodesia, and they're going to start making incursions into the country. The military is going to fly out and kill this incursion and kill that incursion. They find ten guys here and twenty guys there, and they find this, and they find that. But over time, as the world retreats on poor Rhodesia, the incursions increase in volume, increase in frequency.

You understand, this is the very beginning of it. We're in like nineteen sixty six here. What's happening now is the Rhodesian military, which is elite, absolutely elite. There are a few different elements to the military. I want to mention right now. They have an air force. Remember when I said South Africa and Rhodesia are super tight. About half of the Rhodesian Air Force is actually South African, South African pilots, South African planes. That's how tight they are.

That will matter later on. So there's an air force. They have the Rhodesian Light Infantry. Again, I want to stress over half of the Rhodesian Light Infantry were Black Africans. This is not a white versus black war. The Rhodesian Light Infantry amazing troops, amazing troops again, outdoor people, rugged people, mandatory military service. They were amazing troops. And then there were actually two different kind of special operations forces special

Green Berets, baby seals. Okay, there were the Rhodesian sas I already mentioned them earlier. Bad dudes. And then there is another group super super cool called the Sellus Scouts or Seleuse Scouts. I've heard it pronounced a thousand different ways as I was doing my research for the show. These are all excellent units, top tier units. They are having no problem hunting down and wiping out these rebels

right now because there simply aren't enough of them. You should know, the first group of rebels who came across the border was not a big group, got hunted down and annihilated almost immediately. They get located, hunted down, annihilated. The air force is used, helicopters are used to they have to stay mobile because there aren't enough of them to just be stationed all over the country. They have to put them in various spots and then be ready to hop on a plane, hop on a helicopter, and

get where you're going. The use of Paris and helicopters is something that will last throughout this war. All right, group comes in, gets wiped out, group comes in, gets wiped out. The Communists, though they're starting to get smarter as they fail what they had initially tried to do was as I mentioned, terrorist tactics. Hey let's butcher a farmer in the family. Let's throw a let's throw a

bomb in an ice cream shop. Let's just basic what you would kind of recognize today as more Jihati terror tactics. But the Rhodesian military, the Rhodesian Intelligence service was so good. These tactics weren't working that great. They wanted the commis needed more power, and so they started to do something. They started to set up secret camps inside of the country, inside Rhodesia. Remember, it's a huge place, so you don't just send in ten idiots from Zambia. You try to

set up camps inside. Now, we were about to get to a point where it's going to get very difficult on the Rhodesians. But they're definitely winning right now. And a huge part of why they're winning is these Kami terrorists are coming from Zambia, virtually all of them from Zambia, because Zambia is the one that's not a friend. Well, the border between Zambia and Rhodesia is a big river. Rivers help provide security because they're hard to cross. They're

hard to cross unknown that's for sure. The Rhodesians understand. If they simply keep this river monitored, keep your patrols up there, you should be able to locate and snuff out all the Kami terrorists, either as they're coming or shortly after they come. You hunt them down, you snuff them out. And I mentioned earlier the sell Us Scouts Seleuse Scouts. I'm just gonna call the Sellus Scouts. I went to community college. They did so much cool stuff. One of the things they were so good at the

SAS two. But it was tracking. It's wild when you read the books how these guys would track. They'd be out there in the bush and they'd come across sign that terrorist groups had come, and they would just start hunting them like they were animals. For a day, two days, three days, following the tracks like like bloodhounds, and then they'd finally find them. You make a phone call, you bring in the troops. You kill them all. You find them, make a phone call, bring in the troops, kill them all.

And I know we're about to be done with our story. I'm going to get back to politics. Sometimes wounded terrorists trying to get back to Zambia would be eaten by crocodiles in the rivers. One guy I read a story about he was wounded, got hunted down by a lion, the wild wild. What's happening? But tomorrow something will happen that will spell eventually disaster for the Rhodesians. That's gonna have to wait till tomorrow, or wait Monday, Chris, Monday,

not Tuesday. No, we're not making them wait till tuesday. That's not right. No, No tomorrow or Monday. We'll do it Monday, all right. Our story continues on Monday. Back to politics next