Stan,

The US gets played because the CT is weak and lacks what most former colonial powers have learned over the decades. We also get played because the offered assistance is politically driven. Something neither you nor I can control. We just get to run with it and try and fix it along the way. See Bill’s excellent post !
So what can the US do to avoid getting played? I look at Mali and I doubt the French would have been played like the US was played.

I cannot emphasise how important it is not to get played - Africa is now quasi-democratic; what this means is that virtually every government in Sub-Saharan Africa represents some sectional/ethnic interest, while the opposition to government represents entirely different sectional/ethnic interests.

The British & French know who is bull####ting & who isn't, because they created the mess in the first place. They have deep, first hand knowledge of each African nation and they (especially the French) are unlikely to tell the US everything they know.

In an increasingly connected, better-educated Africa (for example: 48 million Nigerians have access to the Internet), the US cannot afford to engage Africa as she did during the Cold War. It is a lot different and a lot more complicated.