"Quite often one reads that such-and-such a country - the Congo, for example - is impoverished in spite of its abundant natural resources."

This is primarily a Christian concept based on Jesus Christ's admonition to "Love your neighbor as yourself." It's implied that resources should be used for the good of the whole community, and presumes something is wrong morally if they are not. Case in point: your Nigerian example. Saro-Wiwa is proof of this. Another case in point is Norway who are abiding by these principles.

Russia seems to be a scary place whether the former KGB or oligarchs rule the place. Way too much atheism and Marxist influence there for the past 100 years.

"I hesitate to quote Marx, but when he said that while men made their history they did not make it in any way they liked, I think he was right."

Ummm........ never mind. 

I agree with Ms Johnston. Here is Putin’s recent interview for the Time

http://kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2007/12/19/1618_type82916_154779.shtml

If Mr Dalrymple would have read it, I don’t think he would find much (if anything) to fault Putin.

“Good sense and wisdom come from within, not from without”

if this is true, should we not abolish philosophy, or at least any kind of its articulate expression?

“Norway […] spending a certain amount of their wealth on bad causes such as aid to Africa.”

I’m afraid you don’t know of what you speak. Even the most vocal critics of the past aid record like William Easterly state that aid can make enormous change for the better. “The White Man’s Burden” p 368: “Put the focus back where it belongs: get the poorest people in the world such obvious goods as the vaccines, the antibiotics, the food supplements, the improved seeds, the fertilizers, the roads, the boreholes, the water pipes, the textbooks, and the nurses. This is not making the poor dependent on handouts; it is giving the poorest people the health, nutrition, education, and other inputs that raise the payoff to their own efforts to better their lives.”  Norway does this.