Rhodesia Thread

All right, here goes.

Jimmy Carter, the U.S. and destruction of the Republic of Rhodesia
Written by Sergei Karamaev, translated by user

In autumn of 2009, an article named “Ian Smith Was Right” was published by The Zimbabwean. The title is a bit misleading, as the article’s text makes no mentions of the late Rhodesian Prime Minister. The sentiment behind the title is conveyed correctly, though – Zimbabwe is a textbook example of absolute and utter failure. The idea itself is hardly new, as normal people have voiced it before numerous times (some of the most sober-minded folks used to say as far back as in the seventies that black terrorists should not be given any power, only to immediately get denounced as racists and loons), but some of our leftist liberal friends (those who have not yet lost the ability to discern evil from good) are only now starting, albeit slowly and reluctantly, to acknowledge it. The article’s author is also quite interesting – one James Carter, a second-rate publicist and a rather fecund writer who happened to work as the President of the United States for some time. To hear from Carter about Mugabe ruining the country is akin to… I don’t know, maybe Jesse Jackson admitting that Nathan Forrest’s KKK had a constructive beginning. Surprising, to say the least.

The beauty of the situation is in the fact that Jimmy Carter is directly responsible for destruction of Rhodesia. He is not alone, of course – disappearance of this state from the world’s political map was aided by Great Britain, USSR, China, OAU member countries and (heartbreaking, I know) the Republic of South Africa. But Carter, as a leader of one of the world’s superpowers and shaper of its foreign policy, bears direct responsibility for one of the most politically and economically developed countries of Southern Africa getting cynically flushed down the drain in the name of speculative and abstract principles such as “democracy”, “universal human values”, “triumph of humanistic ideas” and other tripe.

Anyway, here’s the full article, followed by my comments.

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from the forced runoff and leave the country. Mugabe then declared himself president. African political leaders largely ignored reports of fraud by their own election observers, and eventually negotiated a power-sharing agreement that Mugabe and Tsvangirai signed on Sept. 15. Unfortunately,Mugabe has not ceded any real power to his opponent and the trend toward a national tragedy has accelerated.

For starters, let me say the following:
Jimmy Carter is a liar.
I can even repeat that:
Jimmy Carter is a shameless, egregious liar.

He was a liar throughout his presidency and remains one to this day. It’s not news, though – many American presidents suffered and still suffer from a penchant for lies, and some even lie under oath (for the sake of justice I’d like to say that Russia, the UK and pretty much the rest of the world are not any better in this regard, but we are discussing America here). However, Carter does not lie all the time and never tells genuine, 100 percent lies. As a phrase attributed to Goebbels says, “A good lie should contain a grain of truth”. Carter does not lie when describing the disaster that is Zimbabwe – famine, cholera, tyranny, incredible inflation that has become a household name. No, this is all true. Here’s what’s not:

James Carter might not have known (and if he did, it did not faze him – who cares about the truth, anyway?) that Rhodesia, unlike its neighbouring South Africa, never had apartheid. Moreover, Rhodesia did not have any laws discriminating against people based on the color of their skin whatsoever. There were cultural customs and traditions responsible for a relatively separate existence of the races, but almost every country has those, to a degree. There were traditions that would have struck an American as weird – for example, despite the Rhodesian Army being racially integrated (with 70 percent of its personnel being African), two of its units, Rhodesian Light Infantry and SAS, were traditionally White. Such was their privilege, and the entire military, White or black, took it for granted and never tried to argue against it. Side by side with them served the Selous Scouts, 75 percent of whom were negroes. Skin color was not an obstacle preventing Rhodesian soldiers from working together. The same, to a certain extent, was true for civil administration, business, etc.

There was not even a whiff of democracy in Zimbabwe’s future, and that was clear for everyone who had a head screwed on properly. Mugabe never really tried to hide his plans for creating a one-party dictatorship, which he carried out to the letter. A devious politician, raised by Jesuit missionaries and Maoist ideology, he would agree to any compromise, as long as it helped him achieve the ultimate goal. Saying that Mugabe had anything to do with democracy is akin to considering tigers and leopards strict vegetarians – a public display of complete ignorance of African realities (forgivable if you are a car mechanic, not much so if you are a high-ranking politician) and basic concepts and principles of politics (unforgivable for any politician).

More lies. Zimbabwe was considered the breadbasket of Africa till 1980, when it wasn’t yet called Zimbabwe. Even Mugabe’s most fanatical supporters reluctantly admit that it was under the White minority that the country achieved its peak agricultural and economical output. Same goes for state spending per capita. As for “economic stability, education and health care”, these were old stocks, so to say. The basics of education and healthcare developed by Whites, along with economic stability provided by Whites (during the first years of his rule, Mugabe didn’t try to interfere with the economy too much, knowing who was responsible for the country’s welfare) allowed Zimbabwe to carry Rhodesia’s mantle of a developed country for about a decade.
(Again for the sake of fairness, I am going to repeat myself and say that the Republic of South Africa also contributed to the country’s destruction, but this topic deserves a separate article. Transformation of Rhodesia from a prospering country into utter ruin is first and foremost Mugabe’s fault, but South Africa played a role in it as well, sad as it is.)

Ol’ Jimmy walked into his own trap here. As it is said above, the Carter Center established an agricultural project in Zimbabwe in 1988. By that time, according to Carter himself, the government had an 8-year record of corruption, mismanagement and oppression. This begs a simple question: What prompted the Carter Center to implement a project in a massively corrupt country – a project requiring some serious investment, no less? Or wasn’t Carter bothered by corruption, oppression, etc. back then? (The question of what was stopping Carter from organizing a similar project in a NON-corrupt country that existed till 1980 is off the table due to being rhetorical.)

Ah, so now the resolution must come from within Africa. Funny how just 30 years ago Jimmy Carter thought (and was adamant about it) that the Rhodesian problem must be resolved by the international community. Back then, in the 70’s, Rhodesia was ruled by Whites, which seemed to be a strong argument in favor of an external resolution. Today it is ruled by blacks, and therefore the resolution must be internal. The former POTUS is nothing if not consistent.
This is the MOST monumental of all lies ever told by James Earl Carter Jr., given that he deftly shirks answering several key questions: Who bears direct responsibility for the chain of events that has led to that humanitarian catastrophe? The head of which state obstinately impeded the resolution of the “Rhodesian problem”? Who made the decisions that resulted in a bloodthirsty tyrant taking over a country? I doubt Jimmy Carter will EVER answer any of these questions.

I find it appropriate to quote here a fragment of Pat Buchanan’s speech to the members of John Birch Society, made on October 24, 1978:

But how could it have been otherwise? The black and white people of Rhodesia who looked to the West have been deserted by the West. The black guerrillas who look to the Soviet Union and Cuba have received all support short of war.

The position that Jimmy Carter’s administration took in regard to Rhodesia was sufficient for sober-minded Americans to brand them as traitors, and reasonably so. They sincerely could not understand where and when did the United States (and the UK) obtain the moral and constitutional right to dictate national policy to other countries. Upon his rise to power, Jimmy Carter has rather clearly outlined the new trend in America’s foreign policy: “The U.S. must actively participate in internal affairs of any country that the U.S. deems to be in the zone of its fundamental interests”. I can’t really say this wasn’t the case before, but under Carter, this trend assumed new shapes and became seasoned with “human rights”. The latter term was widely used for political purposes; I do not rule out Carter himself sincerely believing in all that starry-eyed humanistic drivel, but his administration, seeing a wonderful new means to exert pressure on others, immediately started using it to the max. Double standards and goalpost switching became the norm – for example, the form of government was now emphasized exclusively, while other aspects, such as the extent to which the government controls its citizens, were disregarded, and so on.

The most sinister role in the U.S. foreign policy under Carter was played by Andrew Young, a Protestant preacher and a Congressman who also happened to be a friend and associate of MLK. In 1977 Carter appointed him the resident U.S. representative in the UN – a decision that proved to be fateful. The far right almost exclusively referred to Young as “rabid nigger”, and they were not far from the truth. Despite being a priest – someone whose very title implies being above prejudice – Young was a typical militant black supremacist who, by sheer luck, managed to gain a modicum of power. Believing himself to be invincible, Young took to violating (albeit covertly) American law, but was eventually caught and forced to quietly resign. Unfortunately, before getting kicked out, he managed to royally screw up a multitude of affairs and completely ruin the image of the United States worldwide.

Young possessed a peculiar trait that can be interpreted both as good or bad, depending on the situation: he could not help himself from speaking his mind. A mind that brimmed with racial hatred and other things that Young considered important, even if the Presidential Administration did not share his opinions (inexcusable for a politician of such rank). For example, he once publicly called Ayatollah Khomeini “some kind of saint” and “a pleasant person in general”. For Young, presence of Cuban soldiers in Africa was “a much-anticipated stabilizing force”, Israelis were “stubborn obstructionists”, and members of the Palestine Liberation Organization were “respectable citizens and representatives of the opposition”. That last one got him fired, as he had held covert negotiations with PLO in disregard of a strict presidential decree prohibiting American diplomats from doing so.

Another of Young’s traits was mendacity. He had absolutely no qualms with backpedaling, recanting earlier statements and lying under oath (just as he lied to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance about meeting with PLO members). He only apologized when cornered with undeniable facts. For example, in spring of 1977, Young told a BBC journalist that “British policy on racial issues in regard to Rhodesia and South Africa was rather cowardly”. He then went on to say “Britain’s behavior makes me seriously think that it were the British who invented racism, seeing as they did more than any other nation in the world to legitimize it.” Such public statements by an official United States UN representative were followed by a massive scandal, and Young was forced to apologize (although in private) to his British colleague Ivor Richard. According to Richard, he was rather surprised to hear Young saying such things to the BBC “and could not believe that was the official viewpoint of the U.S. government. After that interview, Mr. Young met with me and said that it seemed he had made a mistake”. (Sentinel Star, April 8, 1977).

Richard, however, had every reason to believe that Young’s words represented an official position of the U.S., given that Young wasn’t just a political ally of Jimmy Carter, but also his close friend and member of his inner circle. He was among the few people who had direct access to the president at any time. Carter trusted him unquestioningly, and Young exploited that trust unscrupulously, feeding the president disinformation that constantly put him in a favorable light. However, Carter hardly was the innocent sheep there – after all, he was fully conscious of his actions when he tasked Young with highly sensitive missions that required adroitness and the skill of selling black for white.

In 1977, Young paid two visits to Africa. During the first one, he expressed an opinion that USSR- and China-backed terrorists deserve sympathy and understanding, as they are forced to use violence to attain power “as last resort – the desperate situation they are in pushed them towards this”. During the second visit, Young went even further: at the so-called UN Conference on Zimbabwe and Namibia, held in Maputo, Mozambique, he declared his intention to “dispel the scepticism displayed by military leaders of liberation movements of the African South, along with their disappointment with the U.S. policy regarding Africa” (Houston Post, May 20, 1977). In other words, Young made it clear that the United States government and personally President Carter were siding with the terrorists.

On 18th and 19th of May 1977, secret talks between U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale and South African Prime Minister John Vorster were held in Vienna. This was the first time either of the countries involved such high-ranking politicians to discuss a problem. Naturally, both the press and the public suspected that something really major was going on, and they were right. The bulletin published by Associated Press on June 5 of the same year was titled “White supremacy is over, says Carter to the peoples of Africa”. Here’s a fragment:
Vorster left the talks extremely displeased with the U.S. policy and “the Free World’s intentions to support terrorist movements of Communist nature”. However, despite him declaring that South Africa would not allow any country to interfere with its internal affairs, he made clear Pretoria’s openness towards any American and British offers regarding Rhodesia.

Associated Press:

Vice President Mondale knew full well that Rhodesian forces’ cross-border raids represented a response to numerous terrorist incursions from neighboring countries. But he did not care. The United States wanted South Africa to pressure Rhodesia into ceasing resistance to terrorists, and that was it. RSA did not really mind strong-arming Rhodesia into curtailing its anti-terrorist activity, but only on condition that the U.S. would do the same to Zambia and Mozambique. For the U.S. this would have been a piece of cake, at least with Zambia (Mozambique was firmly locked in Soviet orbit, and Americans could not have influenced it even if they wanted to). But Carter Administration only wanted Rhodesians to lay down their arms, so Vorster’s offer was refused.

Rhodesians were Anglo nigger loving Christcucks who fucked over the Boers. Instead of lookiny out for White interests, they resorted to cheap nigger labor and financed these subhumans outbreed and Whites and takeover.

Associated Press:

Rhodesians eventually wised up to the threat that Jimmy Carter’s policies posed for them. In September of 1977, Rowan Cronje, Rhodesian Minister of Labor and Social Welfare, accused the Carter government of double standards: “President Carter is very selective when it comes to moral principles and values, deciding freely which ones are to be imposed and which are to be ignored. I fail to see any logic in the Carter Administration’s attempts to force the black majority rule on Rhodesia, while most of Africa’s independent countries don’t even know what free elections are. If the governments of USA and Great Britan achieve their goal, Rhodesia will turn into a country where a black minority reigns over a realm of chaos, tragedy and desolation. Yet both the U.S. and Britain continue to relentlessly push for Rhodesia’s destruction – all for the sake of satisfying the whims of the UN and communist countries.”
In the meantime, the Carter Administration kept publicly claiming that the U.S. does not interfere with other states’ internal affairs and maintains “strict neutrality” in this regard. People have gotten so fed up with these repeated claims that the word “neutral” itself has taken on a tongue-in-cheek meeting. An article titled “End to sanctions?”, published by Newsweek on April 30 1979, features a photo of Andrew Young and ZIPRA leader Joshua Nkomo talking to each other animatedly. The caption to the photo said: “Nkomo and Young in 1977: just how ‘neutral’ is the U.S. towards Rhodesia?”
Carter’s non-stop claims of alleged neutrality of the United States towards Rhodesia have eventually resulted in a storm of criticism from senators. In autumn of 1978, California Republican Samuel Hayakawa said the following in a public interview (US News & World Report, October 30, 1978):

The world certainly did not lack for “neutral” organizations, either. Here’s what’s written in an Associated Press bulletin dated with September 28, 1978:

Britain was also big on “neutrality”. UPI, October 28, 1978:

Timing of the latter article is bitterly ironic, given that just a few days prior to its publication, Prime Minister Ian Smith remarked that the Free World wouldn’t sell Rhodesia even a toy gun so that it could defend itself, all while eagerly arming terrorists. In his comment on the news of Britain supplying weapons (with a total cost of $16 million) to Zambia, he said that even despite the sheer volume of armaments headed to Zambia, Rhodesia will take any measures it deems necessary to defend itself.

As it was said by one of the readers in his letter to the Soldier of Fortune magazine: