One, we have a history of practiced indifference towards what happens to black people. We might wring our hands over Darfur, we might make snide remarks about the south African national Party.. .but ultimately if it's black people taking the hit, the United States government does not give a fuck.
"But Scootaloo," you might ask, "What about Somalia! We intervened there, didn't we?" Yes we did. We got involved in December of 1992. Interesting timing there; very snug between the election and inauguration. Ask yourself; if George Bush had won a second term, would any US troops been involved in Somalia at all? I would answer with a very certain no; our involvement there was purely an act of sabotage by an outgoing administration.
But there's more than just casual indifference to the plights of black people. There's also the US interest in deconstructing the Middle East.
Look for a moment back at the Arab Spring. Why did we sign on with the Libyan rebels, but help arm Bahrain against protestors? Because King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa is a pliable dictator who gives the US what it wants, while Muammar Gaddafi was a strong resistor of Us interests. So we dragged Gaddafi through the streets and put bullet holes in his flogged corpse... and we allowed the Bahraini authorities to use US weapons to do the same thing to their own people.
Assad is another who refuses to cave to the demands of the west - in particular he has refused to give up his insistence that the Golan be returned to Syria (if there is a future Syrian government, this will be the third thing they sign off on) but also his refusal to throw open the doors to western "markets" (i.e., pillage - this will be the second thing a hypothetical "new government" signs off on - the first will be the granting of dictatorial powers to a US-approved headman, if you're curious) and his resiliant insistence on a secular Arab unity - the idea of Arab unity scares the shit out of the west.
Which brings us to an awkward reality. when Dubya used the word "crusade" to refer to the rape of Iraq... that wasn't a gaffe, it wasn't a faux pas... that's exactly what this is. Not so much in the pious zeal of the Middle Ages - there's no real effort to "Claim the land for Christendom" - but there is a very certain and very clear effort to strip the Arab world of any sort of power, to smash, crush, and loot these nations into nothingness and leave them a wasteland of warlords and poverty, for the benefit of "The west". To paraphrase a misquote, our goal is to wipe them off the map.
African nations are often either already in such a state, or could easily fall into such a state with a little nudging. No great effort needs to be expended there; it helps that the western media pays next to no attention to any part of Africa that doesn't have a border with Israel, too, so pretty easy to slip arms and "specialists" to some Congolese or Malawian faction and let them have at it. To crush the Arab (and Muslim - can't leave out Iran and south asia!) nations takes a little more work both to undermine the standing societies in place and to make it not quite so obvious to the media eye (or better yet, totally deserved)
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