Imperialism has definitely fucked over lots of countries, and I don't want to diminish that. But at the same time, trying to pin everything on imperialists does

Imperialism has definitely fucked over lots of countries, and I don't want to diminish that. But at the same time, trying to pin everything on imperialists does just as much as to erase people from history as the imperialist threat you're inveighing against. One of the dramatically underappreciated aspects of imperialism is the degree to which it involves local political actors attempting to solicit foreign (imperial) support and/or intervention to service their local political needs. This isn't always the case, but it's important not to whitewash the influence of such local concerns. It's thus especially telling that one of your "examples" of modern imperialism is actually something that was entirely a spontaneous, endogenous reaction to local politics and local concerns that literally left all of the "imperialists" flat-footed exclaiming "wait, what?"