Just listened to a few songs. Goodly done

and here i was thinking "slot a floppy" was another way to say "thumbing one in"....ya learn something new every day

I think that is just going back to the "historic inevitability" argument from Marx. Every sect/clan/group/movement has the capacity for arms, throughout history. Humanity and weapons go together like ducks and water. The war went poorly for Rhodesia because the free world abandoned them due to their apartheid system while the Communists targeted them for aggressive action, a "must-win" campaign. If the Nazis hadn't helped Franco, wouldn't the Spanish civil war have gone badly for the nationalists? There are always arms, it comes down to who has the most arms with the most bodies, and the latter item is related to who makes the best argument.

The government of Rhodesia was set up to lose. UK/USA pushed to isolate them, and majority rule or lack thereof isn't the key turning point. If the USA had said "we're not going to let this domino fall" things might have been much different. But, Carter and Vietnam made sure that didn't happen. We picked a different domino, and lost it anyway.

All arms are not created equal. Changing arms technology changes how wars are fought, and in this case changed the balance of power. The white Rhodesians managed to create a country in the first place by winning the Matabele wars through vast technological superiority. The proliferation of compact repeating arms and explosive weapons means that even a technologically inferior force can win so long as they have a sympathetic population to blend into and the will to fight a long, bloody war. There's a reason we mock Biden's F-15 comment around here.

I completely agree with you that who made the best argument was critical in Rhodesia. The white Rhodesians' argument boiled down to "I don't believe in black majority rule ever in Rhodesia—not in a thousand years." - Ian Smith, 1976 radio address. That's a pretty hard argument to sell; that 90+% of the population will never have the power to determine their own fate. Add in some of the actions the Rhodesians took in the field and it shouldn't be a surprise that the black guerilla groups grew steadily through the war while the area controlled by the white government shrank. People love to talk about Fireforce and the external ops; people are much less keen to talk about how the Rhodesians copied the failed Protected Villages concept from the Vietnam War.

'We'll never grant the blacks equality' is also a pretty shitty argument if you want support from the US during our own civil rights era, although frankly I don't think US support would have been as valuable as some people propose. Giving them weapons might have kept the war from moving to phase 3, but wouldn't have helped them stomp out the phase 2 conflict.

Was anyone held against their will or forced to give their labor to another person for free?

Or...we're they allowed to live there, even if they didn't earn it, but just didn't have a say in things since they didn't contribute?

Rome - A Passage to Rhodesia is a pretty good album too.

Oh wow, they were allowed to live on a fraction of their ancestral land even if they didn’t earn it? Clearly they should have been grateful!

Were the first peoples grateful when you gave them your house?

why even quote him, hes clearly just shitting up the thread

Interesting how majority rule was the demand of the world for Rhodesia, but in America majority rule is the most evil concept in the mind of liberals.

Yup.

I had a "Be a man among Men" poster framed and hung it in my living room.  I merely liked the poster and think that the Rhodesian conflict  was an interesting period from a historical perspective.

Next thing I know Im labeled as a white supremest from a few people that saw it when they came over.

Sweet straw man bro. Do you believe that UDI and the Bush War ended well? If not, do you believe a better result could have been achieved by taking a different path somewhere along the way?



If asking people to actually think about the conflict instead of just repeating the propaganda version is shitting up the thread, then I guess I'm guilty.

Are they on the .gov tit? Then no.

My Dad flew these in the USAF, the to the A7D.  Last time I saw one it didn't have a pilot in it and it was taxing back to a hanger in Carson City.  10 minutes later some guy walks out and asked me not to say anything because it wasn't legal at that time to fly drones like that.  It was used to train US Marines at the cold weather station near by.  It was actually missing a Engine/Prop and the pilot lol.

Ping... Calling out the fireforce to continue this awesomeness... :)

I'll ask again, is this the same version of fireforce? Here

I need to order a shirt from Sarco before it gets cold. I hope it makes a good cover shirt.

I think that's the version I had. (I paid it forward) wish I had it to re read.

Rhodesian Doubletap

(y'all should read this)