He just died so we're supposed to pretend he's a saint, but Carter was instrumental in killing the free, prosperous state of Rhodesia and aiding Mugabe in his takeover of it, then transforming it into hellish Zimbabwe
In fact, after Harold Wilson, Carter's the key villain🧵👇
I've written much about this before, but a quick summary to set the scene:
Carter was elected in '76 and acceded to power in '77. This coincided with the Bush War taking its final, much more intense form, with Soviet and CCP-backed rebels infiltrating from Zambia and Mozambique, which the Portuguese had lost in '75 after the '74 Carnation Revolution
The Rhodesian Front government, still generally supported by most blacks and whites within the country, was fighting for its life against those communist rebels and in desperate need of Western aid to survive. Its survival would have mean a bulwark against the communists in one of the world's key regions.
It needed that aid because the South Africans had generally stopped helping, as they sensed which way the wind was blowing and sought detente in their region with the black communist governments, and thought throwing Rhodesia to the wolves would buy them some time. Meanwhile, the whole world other than South Africa and Israel had gone along with UN sanctions of Rhodesia, cutting it off from needed trade and access to supplies
So, with the South Africans betraying them, the British unhelpful, and the communists surrounding them, the Rhodesians desperately needed American aid
In a sane world, it would have been given. Rhodesia was free, with personal and property rights generally protected and respected for white and black alike. It was willing to fight communism and, at the point of Carter's election, had already done so for a decade. It could feed Africa and had vast mineral reserves. So, it was just the sort of state you would think America would want to aid in the Cold War, and help defend from communism
That aid was given by some Americans personally, such as Soldier of Fortune's Robert Brown, and some Americans arrived to fight as volunteers...but it was left to see if Carter would let Rhodesia fall to the communists, or provide the little bit of aid and sanctions relief it needed to keep fighting
Carter didn't give it. Despite being a Southern Democrat, he was in thrall to the race communist spirit of the age, one best represented by his friend and fellow Georgian, "Civil Rights leader" Andy Young
Young, America’s UN Ambassador from January 1977 to September '79, was known for being “lenient toward communist tyranny.” He took the lead on US policy toward Rhodesia, and remained unremittingly hostile to the country as it fought for survival against communist aggression, not only maintaining sanctions on it but providing much moral aid to communist rebels like Mugabe and Nkomo
That Young-led American support for communist rebels continued even as they committed horrid atrocities
For example, in '79, Nkomo's USSR-aided rebels, after years of torturing and killing black villagers, shot down two Rhodesian civilian airliners. When the planes crashed, his men r*ped the survivors and then bayoneted them to death. After the planes were shot down and survivors deliberately tortured and murdered, Young described Nkomo as “conciliatory" toward the Rhodesians.
Young even kept up the support of Mugabe to the point of refusing to let the Rhodesians find a negotiated political end to the war
When moderate African Bishop Abel Muzorewa was elected in the 1979 election in what was described as "undeniably mobilized a genuine outpouring of sentiment for peace among black Rhodesians," Young smeared it as an election of a “neofascist." He then, with Carter's blessing and support, pushed for an end of such conciliatory measures and demanded an election in which Mugabe or Nkomo could be elected
So, under Carter's watch, in the last year of his presidency, Young then supported Mugabe in the 1980 election, which was characterized by Mugabe’s men intimidating voters. Lord Christopher Soames, charged by the British with overseeing the election, found that "the scale of intimidation in eastern Rhodesia [bordering Mozambique, which had sheltered Mugabe's ZANU guerrillas] was massive. . . . The mere presence of Mugabe's guerrillas in the villages was enough to deter the local population from showing support for any party other than ZANU."
Young didn't care about the voter intimidation, nor the torture and killing of black Rhodesians. Instead, he stuck by Mugabe, again with Carter's blessing.
Even as Mugabe described a multi-party state as a "luxury" he would end, Young praised him, saying, "I find that I am fascinated by his intelligence, by his dedication. The only thing that frustrates me about Robert Mugabe is that he is so damned incorruptible.”
For reference, Young's support for Mugabe (and Carter's friendship with Young) continued past Carter's presidency
He even defended Mugabe as he murdered and stole the farms of Rhodesia's white farmers. Young defended the “land reform,” saying, “President Mugabe is doing much better to manage this situation than the British government is doing managing Ireland.” He then hand-waved away the murder that occurred, saying, "I think it was in the tradition of civil disobedience, but unfortunately the hostilities between the veterans and the land owners was rather volatile and people were killed."
Young has continued to support Mugabe in recent years. In 2008, The New Republic quoted him as lying and ridiculously claiming that Mugabe doesn’t steal, leading that outlet to say, “Young, with the soft voice and the doe eyes, long ago turned into a cash carnivore, fronting for Africa's tyrants in corporate board rooms and congressional offices.”39 It added, “Well, he does steal, and from his own people. And he maims and murders them, too.”
So, as a free nation tried fighting communist tyranny, Carter sent the Civil Rights hounds after it and let them destroy it in the name of race communism, supporting murderous rebels in the name of "democracy" even as they butchered civilians in unspeakable atrocities and intimidated voters
He and his friend Andy Young then continued supporting Mugabe even as he genocided the Ndebele, stole land and other property from the remaining whites, and killed them as "land reform"
So, unless you support the murderous Robert Mugabe and his campaign of terror-filled race communism, there's no reason to support Jimmy Carter
He's a villain who enabled, supported, and provided moral cover for the worst sort of tyranny and villainy, consigning millions to horrid fates
“We will expropriate land without compensation whether [whites] like it or not. If they object, they can seek refugee in America.”
South Africa is going full Zimbabwe. Never go full Zimbabwe.
A reminder of what happened in Rhodesia and why that's a warning for South Africa🧵👇
As a reminder, Rhodesia was essentially the opposite of either Zimbabwe or modern South Africa
It was prosperous, had no anti-black or anti-white apartheid laws, had functioning civil infrastructure, and was a breadbasket rather than a land of fallow farms that have been handed to incompetents out of a desire for racial redistribution
That held true, for reference, even into the later stages of the Bush War, when you'd think things would be falling apart, a la Germany in March of '45
Instead, it was more functional than modern South Africa, which is at peace and aided by the world
Here is how Dr. Theodore Dalrymple described it:
I expected to find on my arrival, therefore, a country in crisis and decay. Instead, I found a country that was, to all appearances, thriving: its roads were well maintained, its transport system functioning, its towns and cities clean and manifesting a municipal pride long gone from England. There were no electricity cuts or shortages of basic food commodities. The large hospital in which I was to work, while stark and somewhat lacking in comforts, was extremely clean and ran with exemplary efficiency. The staff, mostly black except for its most senior members, had a vibrant esprit de corps, and the hospital, as I discovered, had a reputation for miles around for the best of medical care. The rural poor would make immense and touching efforts to reach it: they arrived covered in the dust of their long journeys. The African nationalist leader and foe of the government, Joshua Nkomo, was a patient there and trusted the care implicitly: for medical ethics transcended all political antagonisms.
One of the states I find most fascinating, after Rhodesia, of course, is Singapore
Why?
Because, it, in its undemocratic nature and drive for excellence, shows how we can escape our current decline and build a future of greatness even as decline surrounds us
A short 🧵👇
Why is it a glimpse at a good future?
It, much like Rhodesia, embraced the functional aspects of our civilization without the egalitarian insanity
As such, it shows what me must avoid to have a thriving society
It is undemocratic, and thus practical rather than ideological, prosperous rather than race communism obsessed, and gleaming rather than covered in the usual refuse of the Third World and increasingly Third Worldified West
It is, in other words, the opposite of South Africa
It embraced excellence rather than equality, and prospered for it, creating a world in which one would like to live rather than some steaming, Third World hell
The trend for the past century and a quarter, one partially shown by this superb video, is that houses prices in gold got cheaper, but priced in fiat they've gotten hugely more expensive
The truth, then, is that Houses Aren't Getting More Expensive, You're Getting Poorer
🧵👇
This chart provides a good showing of the gold trend, though it only goes until 2020, after which the trend accelerated
Priced in gold, which is useful because it represents the cost in a relatively stable fraction of global production, houses have gotten noticeably cheaper while growing larger and more complex
Priced in fiat, they've become unaffordable to the majority of the country
So, what happened? Why don't they seem cheaper?
Because income hasn't kept up with real inflation
As Forbes noted: "The bottom line is that, in terms of gold, wages have fallen by about 87 percent. To get a stronger sense of what that means, consider that back in 1965, the minimum wage was 71 ounces of gold per year. In 2011, the senior engineer earned the equivalent of 63 ounces in gold. So, measured in gold, we see that senior engineers now earn less than what unskilled laborers earned back in 1965. That’s right: today’s highly skilled professional is making less in real, comparative terms than yesterday’s unskilled worker."
Time for a very short 🧵with some of my favorite memes about the Rhodesian Bush War
First up, of course, is this about Operation Eland, the amazing raid on ZANLA in Mozambique in which 4 Selous Scouts were injured, and 2000 "terrs" left "slotted"
The rest 🧵👇
Up next: always remember what's possible
The Rhodesian security forces never had more than a few thousand first-line fighters, yet they fought a nearly successful, 15-year war against terrorists backed by not just the communist bloc, but the "free world" as well
Few things are impossible to those willing to go all out fighting for them, as the valiant efforts of the Rhodesians in the Bush War show, and thus even their loss is inspiring. If they, a small and landlocked country of ~250k whites and a few million blacks, could almost win a fight against the whole world, we can surely rescue our country
Then there's: your average Joe has no idea about any of this
People frequently ask what I do and I end up telling them I generally focus on the history of "decolonized" Africa, with a focus on the tragedy of Rhodesia. They're shocked to discover America aided communists destroy a free and prosperous state in the name of race communism.
Further, it seriously changes their view of not just the Cold War, but also the American Civil Rights Movement, which was backing Mugabe and Nkomo even as they launched terror attacks on Rhodesian civilians
Never forget that despite the mythology of the Cold War being that it was a global fight against communism, America aided communist terrorists who attacked free and prosperous Rhodesia
Thatcher shows what the Cold War was really about
A short 🧵👇
Why did they do that? Because Rhodesia stood for what they hated: hierarchy amongst men
Namely, though it had no apartheid, it had propertied voting; to vote, one either needed to be highly educated or have a certain amount (about $60k USD in modern money) of Rhodesian property
That common sense law screened the incompetent out of the voting pool
Only stewards could vote, and thus those controlling the direction of the country were better able to steward its prosperity and future
I'm often asked why I find the Rhodesian story so compelling
Much of the answer lies with this short clip, as I'll explain in the 🧵👇
The thing is, when faced with fighting the whole world in a desperate attempt to defeat "democratic" race communism, the Rhodesians took that plunge
They did what was honorable rather than easy, and spent a decade and a half battling nearly the entire West plus the entire communist bloc
Their enemies had Soviet advisors, Chinese training, brand new Communist-bloc weaponry, and total moral support from the democratic "free world" which meant the UN was on their side and the Rhodesians were cut off from world trade
But still the Ian Smith-led government didn't give in. Despite being surrounded on three sides by 1975, being grossly outnumbered, and having the South Africans stab them in the back in the name of detente, they didn't give in until all was lost in 1980