I recently saw this photograph and thought it might be of interest to both our older and younger readers alike.
Our older readers will recall, what many of us refer to today as, The Bush Wars in Africa. Without getting too deep down the rabbit hole, the world radically changed post WWII. Traditional “empires” with colonies were being disassembled, but a Capitalism vs Communism polarity were competing for influence. So many times different groups would be used as proxies in Cold War competition.
What many of our readers see today in the Middle East and South West Asia as “fake countries” coming apart has happened twice before since 1945. The previous incident was the breakup of Yugoslavia and the constant turmoil in the Balkans during the 1990’s.
And even before that, many of the European colonies were granted independence post WWII. This resulted in a never ending rash of Bush Wars in Africa that lasted well into the 1980’s. And Rhodesia wasn’t the only one. Just the most famous.
The photo above is directly related to the “Congo Crisis” of 1960. In it you will see “white mercenaries” serving with Katanga Gendarmes. All equipped with FAL’s. In the end, Katanga didn’t successfully break away from the Congo. Just another lost cause in a far away land.
But what the 1960-70’s bush wars did bring about is the modern idea of the “private military contractor”: PMCs. Or the vogue phrase of the day, “mercenary”. Many of these folks are still around. Cutting their teeth in Africa and the Balkans but living on with long careers even today. I personally know of one “bloke” who showed up in Iraq, working a logistics contract in the mid 2000’s.
Think about that. A contractor who had time in Africa, the Balkans and the GWOT. Amazing! It’s fun to reminisce about such things, if it was really behind us. But unfortunately it’s not. It’s just the Western Press doesn’t cover the story. Iraq is broken apart into 3 countries. Syria is in at least 3 if not 4 pieces. And as I type, DynCorp is landing troops in Yemen since Academi (Blackwater) had some serious losses and seems to be pulling out.
Within the next few months, you will see calls for Western militaries to “officially” move whole units into Libya. Which is broken up into at least 2, if not 3 parts. And while we are on the topic of Africa in 2016, let’s not forget the old Bush-War battleground of Rhodesia. Known today as Zimbabwe and ruled by the socialist hero Robert Mugabe. He’s 92 as of this writing and there are many people much smarter than me who worry about what happens in Rhodesia…cough..cough…I mean Zimbabwe when he’s gone?
Will the socialists dream continue? Or will there be a power struggle and inevitable war? You get one guess.
Marky
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