I enjoy your posts eisenherz. I have perhaps a slight different flavour in my worldview, but I always respect people who are well informed and logical in their reasoning.

Africa
The US is sending both food, drones and special forces soldiers to Africa, so it's a mixed blessing what they are doing. A lot of the problems in Africa are caused by colonialism, and then the unrealistic expectation on Africa to "catch up" with Europe in next to no time. While we had hundreds of years of slowly developing and getting used to technology, learning to get on reasonably between nations, and Christianity as a sort of moral compass and system of reference -- they were expected to go from a rather primitive type of lifestyle and worldview and adapt to Western values and system overnight. It was bound to work poorly! Colonialism is partly only gone on the surface I think. It's being continued by multinational corporations and by the US' own brand of colonialism/imperialism that is a bit less obvious than the European, old, version. And there is no shortage of European companies, individuals and countries still pursuing their agendas there, as if colonialism was still on.

It's interesting that in some of the colonies that France held on to (smaller places, called "overseas territory") are actually doing better - people have a better life, than the ones they dropped (mostly African). They have the same rights as any normal citizen of France. Just basing that on people I have met, haven't visited any such place myself. But they see themselves as EU citizens etc, etc even if they are from Reunion, the Caribbean or somewhere in the Pacific ocean!

Russia in the guise of the USSR, has actually helped African nations quite a bit in the past. I'm sure it was partly geopolitically motivated, and ideological, but a university is a university, whatever the motivation, and a hospital is a hospital, a bridge is a bridge. They gave A LOT! And more useful things, not just food etc - things that will keep on giving. Quite a few leading figures in Africa were apparently educated in Moscow, for free.

I don't know what Russia is doing in Africa today; but Russia had no colonies in Africa and has not exploited it in the same way as, say, France or Britain. I don't see that Russia has any moral obligation to do anything there.

China's involvement in Africa is getting a lot of publicity and I personally like that they are treating Africans as equals and not as charity victims. I understand they make deals about raw material and in return build infrastructure that's needed. No doubt there's plenty of corruption involved, but at least it's a step towards Africa moving away from the legacy of colonial victims and aid dependents.


Afghanistan
Yes, well maybe you haven't seen the "women" argument as much. I read the Swedish press a lot and they seem to think that the whole thing was about Afghan women (feminism is the big theme du jour in Sweden at the moment). So the US on some kind of humanitarian, feminist quest... It's silly but a lot of people will immedately bring that up.

And of course, as you say, if Afghanistan was retaliation for 9-11 then they should have attacked either Saudi Arabia or possibly Egypt. There is no doubt at all, that al Qaeda, to the extent that it exists as an organised entity ---- like some kind of real-life "Spectre" from James Bond --- is funded with Saudi money and has Saudis pulling the strings.

Don't know if you've seen that video clip with the US General, Clark I think, who was revealing that the US had literally a roadmap with countries they were going to invade back in the mid 90s. Afghanistan was on it. Long before 9-11.
They've followed this very closely; almost all of the regimes on that original list have been taken down. Chance? No way - there's a bigger chance of winning the lottery, than those exact countries being invaded or destabilised. They had a geopolitical agenda, which involved regime change and/or invasion and destabilisinig a number of countries, and they've been working to it, using propganda, hype, psy-ops and twisted logic to justify it as "necessary".

Basically, they were just waiting for an excuse to invade there, and they could loosely get something together, linking Afghanistan with 9-11 so they went for it. And the US population, having never experienced a foreign terror attack on their soil were so totally worked up and distressed about it, that they would have bought into anything. After that the almost "holy" status of 9-11 in the American psyche means that it's been very hard for anybody to raise legitimation questions about the ""War on terror" - that would mean you are sympathising with the "evil" terrorists and your career or friendships could be cut short.

And now, we can see what the real objective is, with their fixation on keeping military bases there, against the will of the president that they themselves essentially hand-picked. (I don't think anyone is so naive as to think that there is democracy in Afghanistan. Real colonialism is so passé. You can achieve the exact same result by keeping some military bases, controlling the economy, influencing mass media and claiming it's democracy until you are green in the eyes and believe it yourself.

And while the US has constructed propganda-friendly reasons for why Bin Laden targetted the US "They hate our freedom!", Bin Laden very clearly said that the the reason for the attack was the presence of US bases in his homeland. If they hadn't had bases there, they would never have been attacked. Then, the US responds in a way that makes the situation a lot WORSE than it was before, generating more and more people annually who end up sympathising with moslem extremism. "Duh!"


Crimea
I agree with your view on it. Sure, that referendum was not legit from a legal international perspective. But I think we all know that the UN or international community would never have helped or supported with a referendum on this. The US would have vetoed anything that could have lead to a chance of Crimea going to RUssia. So they were being pragmatic and thought "why waste time on that when we already know the outcome". I am convinced the great majority there genuinely wanted to join Russia, and I think it was pretty cool that they acted the way they did. Obviously it was a bit of a coup by Russia, and no doubt Russia was pulling some strings in the background - green men etc. But who cares? Nobody died; the people in Crimea got what they wanted, and the US / EU was taught a lesson about unexpected results of meddling in the ex USSR.

East Ukraine
I don't agree with Russia's stance on East Ukraine though. I think Russia should either try a LOT harder to calm things down, and get the rebels to back off and dissolve the People's Republics. Or, Russia should go in, and occupy - if that is the "secret" objective (beginning to doubt that though). The "nothing to do with us" approach doesn't convince me, for one.

It's obvious that this region is just as much Russian, in terms of ethnically and people's loyalties, as it is Ukrainian. A bit like Alsace, Schleswig Holstein or Tornedalen in Sweden. Or people from ex-Yugoslavia who are almost never a clearcut case of one of the new nationalities or the other - and not loyal to the one that they happen to be citizen of.

People seem to be a bit of both - loyalties all over, language no clearcut question etc, etc... It's probably "swings and roundabouts" which of the countries it belongs to. It seems like independence would not be a good option, or realistic. Both Ukrainian under the Kiev government, or Russian would be preferable to living in a civil war zone indefinitely, for sure! This limbo situation with semi-civil war, death and destruction is tragic and Russia's "hands-off"/"not our business" stance is confusing and doesn't make sense.

From a philosophical point of view, the question arises of how to deal with brutal, torturous and dictatorial regimes. (Khmer Rouge, Saddam Hussein's Irak, the abusive Gaddafi regime, Mugabe's Zimbabwe, North Korea and many more). Personally I do not know the answer - but it is not as easy as saying; it is an internal affair, let them sort it out themselves. History might judge us harshly for just standing by watching the abuse next door and do nothing. Remember the millions slaughtered in Rwanda? Nobody helped them - surely you cannot want that?
It's worse in Iraq now, than under Saddam. Unemployment, civil war, destruction, shortages. They benefited nothing. Even Iraqis who were originally happy to see him gone, now openly say they'd take him back if they could - to have a stable country and reasonable finances. Millions have fled the country AFTER the so called liberation.

It's MUCH worse in Libya now, than under Ghadaffi. That seems to be the consensus of almost everybody. It's gone from the most prosperous and well organised North African country, to war zones with rival clans and tribes doing each other in. That's ironocially exactly what Ghadaffi's son Said repeatedly predicted and it worked out even worse than what he suggested.

North Korea is a very special situation. First of all it's the victim of an extreme propganda campaign. I have actually been there (very long time ago, as a teen, but have since stayed informed). I believe that leaving it alone is in the best interest of the country. Right now they are doing quite well and managed to improve living standards quite a bit. The country relaxes and is less paranoid and intrusive if not pressured. If they are open, the issues about human right can be gradually introduced.
Stop giving aid, let them take responsibility for their own econonmic decisions. Although, they probably do have very harsh labour camps etc - it's milked for all its worth in terms of propaganda value in Western Press.

The history is unique and when you take that into consideration, ideology + culture, the whole situation makes more sense. An invasion there would lead to an absolute bloodbath. They would fight almost to the last man.

If you had seen the war exhibitions there, you'd understand why they hate America. There was literally ONE house left standing in Pyongyang, and several other cities. The US slaughtered people indiscriminably with some truly horrific weapons - they used the full aresenal of now illegal weapons in Korea. They were "communists" at the height of McCarthyism. Their lives were worth nothing. Everybody there lost several family members in that war. Half the current government are war orphans. It's "the forgotten war" because it's too embarrassing for the US to remember the horrors they committed there and the fact that nothing came of the war - North Korea gained one city, that was all. Add ideology and confusian patriarchy/emperor worship to that, and you have the fanaticism explained. The population there are very, very firm in their beliefs. The rest of the world being friendly, doing cultural exchanges etc and then gradually bringing up human rights is the way to go.
All such countries loosen up eventually, and change can come from within.

Zimbabwe - I don't know enough about what happened there to have an opinion. But I think we have messed around more than enough in Africa. They ended up re-electing him though, didn't they?

Rwanda - Not a conflict I followed closely. But weren't there minerals or even oil involved at one corner of that conflicts. No I actually don't think we have a responsibility there. As tragic and awful as the situation was.