Rhodie Mags:

Finally got around to visiting a buddy across the line and picking up my two Rhodesian FAL magazines that I had him order for me from SARCO back when they got a shipment. These are actually in much better condition than the SARCO pics let on as the ones they had pictured were very rusty and pitted. These don't have a speck of rust that I can see at first glance, and have very honest wear from use at the front strap where they were rocked in and out of place. I've always wanted a Rhodie kit, but they were gone or out of my price range before I got the ability to build one back before the MD ban went into effect. Mags will do for now.

Rhodesia...another good and prosperous country destroyed by politics - Smith was right!

28Shooter said:

Rhodesia...another good and prosperous country destroyed by politics - Smith was right!

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I don't know if I'd say it was politics, more like just plain, old-fashioned corruption among ZANU-PF, with Mugabe as Lead Kleptocrat.

Allen65 said:

I don't know if I'd say it was politics, more like just plain, old-fashioned corruption among ZANU-PF, with Mugabe as Lead Kleptocrat.

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Zimbabwe was destroyed by Mugabe and the ZANU-PF, but Rhodesia and Rhodesia-Zimbabwe were absolutely destroyed by politics. The Labour Party (and even Conservative Party) of the UK both caved to the Afro-Asian block of the UN General Assembly and sought to return home rule over foreign colonies not to the existing home rule governments that were already in place, but to what were, at the time, deemed to be the indigenous population. Problem is, there really wasn't an indigenous population to Rhodesia. Everyone there was from everywhere else. About the only people living there pre-history were the San who migrated through as they were and still are a hunter-gatherer society that don't claim lands.

So, parliament and the queen got their panties in a bunch when Rhodesia, fearing another "Congo" type destabilization, declared their independence unilaterally. Their pride got hurt, and with the Civil Rights fight in the US taking place around the same time and Apartheid really rearing its head in the RSA, they didn't want to look bad in the media and embargoed the new nation.

Fast forward to the end of the bush war, and feeling economic pressure, a coalition gov't is formed. Congress votes to recognize the new integrated (and most importantly, stable and functioning) government, but Jimmy Carter refuses to allow it to happen. The Brits being petty biatches that they are don't drop the matter either. Carter and the Brits both say that they won't recognize any government if Mugabe and Nkomo aren't allowed to run for president. Because, you know, letting terrorists who don't even reside in the country run for the highest office in the land is always a good idea. Still, Mugabe and Nkomo are likely to cancel each other out and the Rho-Zim government will survive if elections are fair and accessible. Well, Mugabe and Nkomo march in with their armies and rig the whole thing because of course, the UN and US and UK don't provide any security despite their demands making everything unstable.

Even then, things weren't so bad until Mugabe went totally off his rocker in the mid 90's and started kicking white farmers off their land and giving what were once productive farms to his cronies who ruined them.

Long story short, Mugabe screwed it all up once he took power, but it was ultimately Carter who screwed the pooch for everyone. Had he simply signed the bill lifting the embargo and recognizing Rho-Zim, England would have been forced to do so as well. Integration would have been complete, the Rho-Zim army could have the support and materiel needed to repulse ZANLA and ZIPRA for good, and It's VERY likely that Rho-Zim would have leaned hard on the RSA to integrate earlier than they ultimately did.

Just another reason Jimmy Carter is a piece of crap.

28Shooter said:

Rhodesia...another good and prosperous country destroyed by politics - Smith was right!

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The world turned its back on Rhodesia it’s a early example of the power of world communism

Baby-poop mags!!!

tallen702 said:

Zimbabwe was destroyed by Mugabe and the ZANU-PF, but Rhodesia and Rhodesia-Zimbabwe were absolutely destroyed by politics. .
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Just another reason Jimmy Carter is a piece of crap.

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Solid history lesson. I'd forgotten all about that because I was in elementary school during most of the Carter Administration. Very nice, well-intentioned guy, but utterly incompetent at damn nearly everything he tried while in office. And, worse, he surrounded himself with sanctimonious fools, too.

Tallen,
What a coincidence! My buddy in VA ordered two of the $18 ones and "accidentally" threw them in my shooting bag a couple of weeks ago. They're in very good shape. There's wear where they were inserted and removed a lot, but no wear on the followers or lips indicating any shooting done with them. I just wiped the grease off of them and tried them. They don't even need new springs like the Argentine ones I've gotten. Proper cleaning to come. I'd recommend them to everyone.

Allen65 said:

Solid history lesson. I'd forgotten all about that because I was in elementary school during most of the Carter Administration. Very nice, well-intentioned guy, but utterly incompetent at damn nearly everything he tried while in office. And, worse, he surrounded himself with sanctimonious fools, too.

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Yep. I have a lot of friends who think he's fantastic because he builds Habitat For Humanity houses and teaches Sunday school. I tell them it's simply his way of trying to atone for the greater sins he committed that still haunt the world to this day.

For further reading on Rhodesia and the bush war, you can't go wrong with:
James and the Duck by Faan Martin
Once Upon a White Man by Graham Atkins
And Mukiwa, When A Crocodile Eats The Sun, and The Fear by Peter Godwin