To be sure, dictators are crafty, evil geniuses with awesome firepower at their disposal. They are also brutally efficient at intimidation, terrorism, and mass slaughter. However, a force is able to dominate because the counterforce is either nonexistent or weak.

Africa is poor because she is not free.

African history is filled with experiences of people shooting their way to power and then splintering into factions, like in Somalia and Liberia.

In the West, the basic economic and social unit is the individual; in Africa, it is the extended family or the collective.

In a banana republic, one might slip on a banana peel but things do work - now and then for the people, albeit inefficiently and unreliably.

Look at the history of peace accords in Africa. They have a terrible record. They are shredded even before the ink on them is dry.

Socialism is always wrong.