I believe we were there “helping” Niger against Islamic militants. Got sideways with their military led govt wrt the US comments about the coup, now they want us out. Good riddance. I agree, let Russia help them out. We have no business there. I read the article Ras posted saying we had forces in Chad also. WTH are we doing? Keep tabs, but also keep out.
From what I know on the situation (which is very little), we have troops all over the world like that and they are often supporting the current government. Basically we are getting paid by that nation to help create stability. Our troops are there more to train than to fight. They may do special missions but that is about it. This former ranger was talking about being in Sudan, Chad, etc. in the 1990s and there wasn't any headlines about his activities or activities of his unit in our media. We only see a part of what is really going down across the globe in our media.
However, I thought France had Chad, Niger, Mali, etc. covered. That was there sphere of influence. (Frankly, France is part of the reason those nations are so messed up right now as they have basically kept them under colonization without having them as official colonies anymore).
The issue with Ras is he thinks we always have some nefarious purpose which isn't the case. Can we be selfish about it? Sure. However, we are not the puppet master he claims the USA to be that pulls the strings and selects governments. We did that some in the Cold War but not as much today. We do support governments that are friendly to us but every nation does that.
It is funny that Ras sees no issues with Russia who is basically doing the same thing as the USA in these instances.
I will say this, though, France has gotten the USA into a ton of crap that we have no business being in. Vietnam is the prime example. Because we were pressured to not recognize the independence movement in the late 1940s, it pushed Ho Chi Minh to turn to the USSR for support against France setting the stage for our own war with them 20 years later. Another thought is that we could be there supporting the French.