Military coup in Zimbabwe - Mugabe possibly detained

[Stones of granite]

Seems very weird watching Zimbabwe politicians celebrating his departure. What do they think is going to happen now?

Sent from my HUAWEI VNS-L31 using Tapatalk

Agreed. Car crash television.

[rowan]

He was real hero having 10's of thousands of people massacred for the crime of belonging to the wrong tribe. The Ndebele call it the Gukuruhundi.

A little history for you: Cecil Rhodes and the British South African Company routed the Ndebele with Maxim machine guns and artillery fire in 1893, killing countless spear-wielding warriors, in what would be described as "one of the most brilliant episodes in the history of British colonisation in Southern Africa." Rhodes, a thief and a murderer, and a gangster who stole countries rather than knocked over banks, ordered no quarter and insisted on personally counting the African dead, urged his men to ‘Wipe them all out, everything black,’ Robert Baden-Powell, future founder of the Boy Scouts, acknowledged the ‘extraordinary bloodthirsty rage of our men.’ The Ndebele and Shona revolts of 1896-1897, known as the first Chimurenga, were put down with considerable brutality and bloodshed. Settler rule was successfully imposed on the country. In the end, the black majority in Rhodesia were left to overthrow settler rule themselves in a protracted guerilla war, the second Chimurenga, that only finally came to an end in 1979.

So for you it's obviously a black and white issue. Mugabe slaughtered innocent people, therefore bad, and should not be remembered as a hero of a rebellion which overthrew an even more oppressive and murderous regime - backed by Britain. In which case you should view Churchill - for instance - as an evil mass-murderer as well, and by no means a hero, on account of his horrific crimes in North Africa, the Middle East, India and elsewhere, which included turning a blind eye to the Bengali famine which killed millions, and testing out chemical weapons on the Kurds. In fact, Britain and its masters in Washington have committed crimes this century which dwarf all of Mugabe's combined, and we should therefore regard these two regimes as completely and utterly evil - by your method of evaluation. In which case I might be inclined to agree with you.

[Stones of granite]

He was real hero having 10's of thousands of people massacred for the crime of belonging to the wrong tribe. The Ndebele call it the Gukuruhundi.

A little history for you: Cecil Rhodes and the British South African Company routed the Ndebele with Maxim machine guns and artillery fire in 1893, killing countless spear-wielding warriors, in what would be described as "one of the most brilliant episodes in the history of British colonisation in Southern Africa." Rhodes, a thief and a murderer, and a gangster who stole countries rather than knocked over banks, ordered no quarter and insisted on personally counting the African dead, urged his men to ‘Wipe them all out, everything black,’ Robert Baden-Powell, future founder of the Boy Scouts, acknowledged the ‘extraordinary bloodthirsty rage of our men.’ The Ndebele and Shona revolts of 1896-1897, known as the first Chimurenga, were put down with considerable brutality and bloodshed. Settler rule was successfully imposed on the country. In the end, the black majority in Rhodesia were left to overthrow settler rule themselves in a protracted guerilla war, the second Chimurenga, that only finally came to an end in 1979.

So for you it's obviously a black and white issue. Mugabe slaughtered innocent people, therefore bad, and should not be remembered as a hero of a rebellion which overthrew an even more oppressive and murderous regime - backed by Britain. In which case you should view Churchill - for instance - as an evil mass-murderer as well, and by no means a hero, on account of his horrific crimes in North Africa, the Middle East, India and elsewhere, which included turning a blind eye to the Bengali famine which killed millions, and testing out chemical weapons on the Kurds. In fact, Britain and its masters in Washington have committed crimes this century which dwarf all of Mugabe's combined, and we should therefore regard these two regimes as completely and utterly evil - by your method of evaluation. In which case I might be inclined to agree with you.

That makes it all right then. Mugabe IS actually a hero for murdering 10's of thousands of his own people because it has been done before by the British. I take it all back.

You must be really pleased that another mass-murdering hero, Mnangagwa, who organised many of the Ndebele killings, is set to take over. Another proper hero.

[rowan]

I think you missed the part at the end, where I actually agreed with you. His role in the rebellion was heroic but, like Churchill and many others, he was also a war criminal who should have gone to the Hague, and in that context should be remembered.

[Stones of granite]

I think you missed the part at the end, where I actually agreed with you. His role in the rebellion was heroic but, like Churchill and many others, he was also a war criminal who should have gone to the Hague, and in that context should be remembered.

You're right, I missed the part at the end. By the end of your first sentence, my eyes had crossed and I was rapidly losing the will to live.

If you have made it your mission in life to spread as much widespread antipathy and anger through carefully crafted stupidity, then congratulations, you're winning.

[rowan]

I'm not defending Mugabe, just pointing out why many still regard him as a hero. I don't. He certainly did heroic things during the rebellion against white rule but would have done well to heed Nietzsche's aphorism:

He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby becomes a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.

[Sandydragon]

I think you missed the part at the end, where I actually agreed with you. His role in the rebellion was heroic but, like Churchill and many others, he was also a war criminal who should have gone to the Hague, and in that context should be remembered.

Ok, so Churchill was fighting a total war. That’s the context of his war crimes. Who was Mugabe fighting when he repressed his own people?

Nice try, it an awful comparison.

[Sandydragon]

He was real hero having 10's of thousands of people massacred for the crime of belonging to the wrong tribe. The Ndebele call it the Gukuruhundi.

A little history for you: Cecil Rhodes and the British South African Company routed the Ndebele with Maxim machine guns and artillery fire in 1893, killing countless spear-wielding warriors, in what would be described as "one of the most brilliant episodes in the history of British colonisation in Southern Africa." Rhodes, a thief and a murderer, and a gangster who stole countries rather than knocked over banks, ordered no quarter and insisted on personally counting the African dead, urged his men to ‘Wipe them all out, everything black,’ Robert Baden-Powell, future founder of the Boy Scouts, acknowledged the ‘extraordinary bloodthirsty rage of our men.’ The Ndebele and Shona revolts of 1896-1897, known as the first Chimurenga, were put down with considerable brutality and bloodshed. Settler rule was successfully imposed on the country. In the end, the black majority in Rhodesia were left to overthrow settler rule themselves in a protracted guerilla war, the second Chimurenga, that only finally came to an end in 1979.

So for you it's obviously a black and white issue. Mugabe slaughtered innocent people, therefore bad, and should not be remembered as a hero of a rebellion which overthrew an even more oppressive and murderous regime - backed by Britain. In which case you should view Churchill - for instance - as an evil mass-murderer as well, and by no means a hero, on account of his horrific crimes in North Africa, the Middle East, India and elsewhere, which included turning a blind eye to the Bengali famine which killed millions, and testing out chemical weapons on the Kurds. In fact, Britain and its masters in Washington have committed crimes this century which dwarf all of Mugabe's combined, and we should therefore regard these two regimes as completely and utterly evil - by your method of evaluation. In which case I might be inclined to agree with you.

SomMugabr was alright really because Cecil Rhodes was a bigger cunt? Most people look better than Rhodes, it’s not much of a bench mark, although I note that you seem to think we would consider him a hero.

[rowan]

Churchill was fighting a total war

By allowing 3.5 million women, children and men to starve during the Bengal Famine, for example, and referring to them as 'Beastly people with a beastly religion . . . (who) breed like rabbits?' The comparison was apt, and simply designed to point out that hero worship of war criminals is hardly confined to the African continent. Far from it, of course.

I note that you seem to think we would consider him a hero.

Did I say that? No. Did I say I regard Mugabe as a hero in my personal view? No. Putting words into my mouth is hardly a clever tactic, especially when I've actually stated the opposite on the latter count. But are there still statues of Churchill & Rhodes in Britain? Yes. Does that mean some Britons still regard them as heroes? Probably. But this is certainly not an apt comparison because Rhodes simply mowed down native people with machine guns, stole their land and turned them into slaves, whereas Mugabe actually helped overthrow a brutal and oppressive regime which had the backing of both Apartheid South Africa and Thatcher's Britain. Rhodes was only introduced to the conversation to remind Stones that Mugabe was not the first to massacre Ndebele tribesmen.

[Sandydragon]

You have misread my comment. You seem to suggest that we British would view Rhodes as a hero. I doubt many do.

Churchill was no saint. He did enough in the U.K. to earn life long hatred in certain areas. But, he stood up to one of the biggest monsters in history, at a time when few people wanted to. Britain could have walked away in 1940 and condemned Europe to decades of oppression.

Mugabe was involved in overthrowing a racist regime and then set about murdering his own people. And then impoverished his nation. Without international concern, his 5th brigade could easily have equalled Rhodes massacres. Some suggest that they pretty much did.

There are statues of Churchill in prominent places in the U.K. standing up to Hitler was probably Britain’s finest hour. Without Churchill that wouldn’t have happened.

Rhodes is less honoured and to memory is only really displayed in relation to his support of education. In Georgia there is a museum to Stalin. Perhaps we should airbrush all history for fear of creating heroes? Or perhaps not.

[rowan]

No, I didn't misread your comment, and that's why I clarified that Rhodes' inclusion in the conversation was (once again) only to remind Stones that Mugabe wasn't the first to massacre Ndebele tribesmen.

Churchill, like Mugabe, both fought with monsters and became a monster. In fact, many of his worst atrocities were committed prior to WWII, proving it was his true nature - and common enough among Britons at the time.

Yes, Mugabe murdered his own people and impoverished his own nation. At no point have I suggested otherwise, and I am happy to see him go. But Churchill murdered the people of other nations, and countless times more, while impoverishing their nations, because he was intensely racist. He also sacrificed many of his own soldiers, and those from elsewhere in the empire.

[Stones of granite]

Mugabe was fighting Ian Smith, not Churchill, who was long dead by the time of the Bush War.

The number of dead in Mugabe's post-Independence purges exceeded the total number of dead of both sides in the Bush War by some margin.

[rowan]

& Churchill killed countless times more than Mugabe. So did Rhodes. & so have British prime ministers this century in allegiance with their masters in Washington, while Ian Smith was estimated to have been responsible for the deaths of 30,000 Zimbabweans during his rule. Europeans killed millions of Africans, stole their resources, destroyed their way of life, and drew up borders which continue to be the basis of inter-tribal and religious conflict today. They did to Africa what the Nazis did to Europe. Mugabe led a successful rebellion against white rule and you want this fact buried and forgotten because he became a dictator afterward and committed atrocities of his own. That smacks of resentment. So nobody should mention Churchill's role in WWII again, by your method of evaluation. It should be buried and forgotten (like Stalin's role was in the West), because of the terrible war crimes he committed in Africa and Asia. Or is it a case of our heroes good, everybody else's evil

[Stones of granite]

& Churchill killed countless times more than Mugabe. So did Rhodes. & so have British prime ministers this century in allegiance with their masters in Washington, while Ian Smith was estimated to have been responsible for the deaths of 30,000 Zimbabweans during his rule. Europeans killed millions of Africans, stole their resources, destroyed their way of life, and drew up borders which continue to be the basis of inter-tribal and religious conflict today. They did to Africa what the Nazis did to Europe. Mugabe led a successful rebellion against white rule and you want this fact buried and forgotten because he became a dictator afterward and committed atrocities of his own. That smacks of resentment. So nobody should mention Churchill's role in WWII again, by your method of evaluation. It should be buried and forgotten (like Stalin's role was in the West), because of the terrible war crimes he committed in Africa and Asia. Or is it a case of our heroes good, everybody else's evil

I'd like to see you back up that figure of Ian Smith being responsible for the deaths of 30,000 Zimbabweans. I reckon you made it up.
In fact, his security forces killed less than 10,000 armed insurgents, which, if you are try draw some kind of moral equivalence with the massacre of unarmed civilians makes you as big an arse as I thought you were.

Your apologist attitudes towards a demagogic mass murderer who hid behind a facade of Marxism to pillage Zimbabwe for financial gain for himself, his wife, and her children are pathetic.

Follow these links for an idea of the lifestyle these people live at the expense of the rape of the market garden of Africa
https://www.iol.co.za/pretoria-news/mug ... s-11290068
https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/ ... n-20171108

[rowan]

& Churchill killed countless times more than Mugabe. So did Rhodes. & so have British prime ministers this century in allegiance with their masters in Washington, while Ian Smith was estimated to have been responsible for the deaths of 30,000 Zimbabweans during his rule. Europeans killed millions of Africans, stole their resources, destroyed their way of life, and drew up borders which continue to be the basis of inter-tribal and religious conflict today. They did to Africa what the Nazis did to Europe. Mugabe led a successful rebellion against white rule and you want this fact buried and forgotten because he became a dictator afterward and committed atrocities of his own. That smacks of resentment. So nobody should mention Churchill's role in WWII again, by your method of evaluation. It should be buried and forgotten (like Stalin's role was in the West), because of the terrible war crimes he committed in Africa and Asia. Or is it a case of our heroes good, everybody else's evil

I'd like to see you back up that figure of Ian Smith being responsible for the deaths of 30,000 Zimbabweans. I reckon you made it up.
In fact, his security forces killed less than 10,000 armed insurgents, which, if you are try draw some kind of moral equivalence with the massacre of unarmed civilians makes you as big an arse as I thought you were.

Your apologist attitudes towards a demagogic mass murderer who hid behind a facade of Marxism to pillage Zimbabwe for financial gain for himself, his wife, and her children are pathetic.

Follow these links for an idea of the lifestyle these people live at the expense of the rape of the market garden of Africa
https://www.iol.co.za/pretoria-news/mug ... s-11290068
https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/ ... n-20171108

The Guardian: Ian Smith: 'The more we killed, the happier we were' https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/ ... ndrajordan

The Telegraph: Ian Smith insisted ‘there will be no majority rule in my lifetime – or in my children’s http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituar ... Smith.html

NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/world ... wanted=all

So who is the apologist and the denialist here?

I've already said several times that I do not consider Mugabe a hero but understand why some Zimbabweans still do, given his role in overthrowing the oppressive, brutal and racist white rule you appear so determined to downplay; just as I understand why some Britons still regard Churchill as a hero, in spite of the horrific war crimes he committed in Africa & Asia.

[Stones of granite]

& Churchill killed countless times more than Mugabe. So did Rhodes. & so have British prime ministers this century in allegiance with their masters in Washington, while Ian Smith was estimated to have been responsible for the deaths of 30,000 Zimbabweans during his rule. Europeans killed millions of Africans, stole their resources, destroyed their way of life, and drew up borders which continue to be the basis of inter-tribal and religious conflict today. They did to Africa what the Nazis did to Europe. Mugabe led a successful rebellion against white rule and you want this fact buried and forgotten because he became a dictator afterward and committed atrocities of his own. That smacks of resentment. So nobody should mention Churchill's role in WWII again, by your method of evaluation. It should be buried and forgotten (like Stalin's role was in the West), because of the terrible war crimes he committed in Africa and Asia. Or is it a case of our heroes good, everybody else's evil

I'd like to see you back up that figure of Ian Smith being responsible for the deaths of 30,000 Zimbabweans. I reckon you made it up.
In fact, his security forces killed less than 10,000 armed insurgents, which, if you are try draw some kind of moral equivalence with the massacre of unarmed civilians makes you as big an arse as I thought you were.

Your apologist attitudes towards a demagogic mass murderer who hid behind a facade of Marxism to pillage Zimbabwe for financial gain for himself, his wife, and her children are pathetic.

Follow these links for an idea of the lifestyle these people live at the expense of the rape of the market garden of Africa
https://www.iol.co.za/pretoria-news/mug ... s-11290068
https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/ ... n-20171108

The Guardian: Ian Smith: 'The more we killed, the happier we were' https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/ ... ndrajordan

The Telegraph: Ian Smith insisted ‘there will be no majority rule in my lifetime – or in my children’s http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituar ... Smith.html

NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/world ... wanted=all

So who is the apologist and the denialist here?

I've already said several times that I do not consider Mugabe a hero but understand why some Zimbabweans still do, given his role in overthrowing the oppressive, brutal and racist white rule you appear so determined to downplay; just as I understand why some Britons still regard Churchill as a hero, in spite of the horrific war crimes he committed in Africa & Asia.

There's no references there, just numbers plucked out the air. Proper analysis, such as Globalsecurity, put the number at under 10,000.
Again, Smith was fighting armed insurgents who were murdering farmers and farm workers (black and white). Not rounding up tribal opponents for murder.

Mind you, I may be doing Mugabe some discredit. Compared with his spiritual mentors Stalin and Mao Zedong, he hardly killed anyone, even if he has been more efficient at plundering the treasury.

[rowan]

Smith was fighting armed insurgents who were murdering farmers and farm workers (black and white). Not rounding up tribal opponents for murder.

Stones' view of white rule in southern Africa and native rebellion against it. My work is done here.

[kk67]

Mugabe was fighting Ian Smith, not Churchill, who was long dead by the time of the Bush War.

Ian Smith and S.Africa.

[Stones of granite]

Smith was fighting armed insurgents who were murdering farmers and farm workers (black and white). Not rounding up tribal opponents for murder.

Stones' view of white rule in southern Africa and native rebellion against it. My work is done here.

I doubt it. You'll be back propagandising for mass murderers in no time.

[Stones of granite]

Mugabe was fighting Ian Smith, not Churchill, who was long dead by the time of the Bush War.

Ian Smith and S.Africa.

Don't forget Churchill. A man practically worshipped in South Africa......er....

[kk67]

Mugabe was fighting Ian Smith, not Churchill, who was long dead by the time of the Bush War.

Ian Smith and S.Africa.

Don't forget Churchill. A man practically worshipped in South Africa......er....

Well Quite. We have brutalized Africa through colonialism and no one comes out of it looking good. The process is now hundreds of years old and the developed world shows no signs of even trying to abate the wars we created. We have serious blue chip multinationals who prefer a country that is destabilised while they rape the mineral assets. DRC, Libya.... It makes extraction and logistics a lot easier to control. And paying less tax on the export.
The outside world is seeing a country constantly in a state of civil war and doing horrific things to each other and I reckon a lot of people just think 'These people are animals'.
They are certainly very angry.

[kk67]

It might not get better but It's good that they've treated him gently. I like that.
The whole country want him to become a farmer. He's always portrayed it as a rural idyll,.......so grab a shovel, Bob.

[Sandydragon]

Smith was fighting armed insurgents who were murdering farmers and farm workers (black and white). Not rounding up tribal opponents for murder.

Stones' view of white rule in southern Africa and native rebellion against it. My work is done here.

Mugabes actions via the 5th brigade put him in very much the same category as Smith. Perhaps worse given that Mugabe pretended to be the saviour of the oppressed native.