Sound familiar to anyone?
No farmer walks outside the perimeter of his security fence unless he is heavily armed and no-one travels on any road at night unless he is on essential military duties, and only then in mine and ambush-protected vehicles mounted with machine guns and cannons, which have largely replaced the farmer's status symbol, the Mercedes Benz.
They are all locally-created, locally designed, usually converted Land-Rovers, although almost any vehicle with sufficient engine power can be adapted to wear the specially-designed armor plating and heavy mine-proofed steel, roll bars and bullet-proof glass.
In many of the sensitive commercial farming areas — and these now cover the majority of farms — homesteads have taken on the appearance of fortresses containing their own arsenal of arms that would not discredit military establishments elsewhere in the world. The chain-link security fences are usually wired to alarms designed to indicate exactly what sector of the fence has been interfered with or breached. In addition some are fitted with highly sensitive microphones to identify and pinpoint potentially hostile sounds from long distances — footsteps on gravel, movement through grass — and monitor these through a receiver installed near the farmer's bed. Alerted, the farmer can at the press of a button, switch on blinding searchlights or phosphorus flares strategically placed in the garden, and fire sets of grenades usually concealed in the bush outside his security fence. Again instant and massive retaliation has beaten off many attacks.
Before the war it was open house down on the farm. Rarely were windows or doors locked or even closed at night. The farmer and his family would go to town leaving their home open to friends and visitors who might drop in. Hospitably, there were usually cold beers in the fridge and plenty to eat in the deep freeze. It was a friendly, outgoing, trusting society. But not today.
In the early days of the war, protection was elementary, or even non-existent ("It won't happen to us" was the attitude) and sandbagged walls to protect windows, doors and other vulnerable parts of the building was thought to be sufficient. Bitter experience disproved this, and now many of the protective measures employed are highly sophisticated and almost impregnable.
Again, sound familiar?
South Texas? no...
"The Valley?" no...
Arizona farm on the border of Mexico? Nope.
Rhodesia, 1979.
We all remember Rhodesia, right?
Oh yeah, it's not there any more.
Gone.
It was "liberated" by communist "freedom fighters."
By which there was an election that was fowled by Carter's administration in it's attacks on elected leader Muzorewa, a small, American-educated pastor, which resulted in another election that brought tyranny in the form of local thug politician Robert Mugabe.
All of this just too damn familiar? I think so because it is the same damn thing. And it is having the same damn results.
Carter saw to it the communists got what they demanded, and it got worse. They caved to further demands, and it got worse. More demands, more demands, more demands.
Until it was outright genocide.
At least they knew the difference between fighting a war and financing a war and called it what it was.
.