Interesting questions. Having lived in and visited the Caribbean region between 1988 and 2010, I can tell you that these disasters are like magnets attracting every kind of hustler, con-man and pervert imaginable, not to mention liberal outfits like Planned Parenthood anxious to remake Haiti in the image of San Francisco and innumerable just-founded-last-year "evangelical" groups looking to save the poor natives from idolatry and slavery to the Pope in Rome. Government corruption multiplies exponentially as foreign aid $$$ pours in. Unscrupulous "businessmen" and politicians who before were unknown nobodies suddenly become big names pulling major strings. I observed all of this personally in Central America after Hurricane Mitch struck in 1998. My best guesstimate is that perhaps 10% of the donated money and goods actually got to the victims of the storm.

This is why I do not desire the overthrow of the Castro brothers in Cuba. Those poor people there would be beseiged with the lowest most despicable detritus the modern world has to offer. My experience meeting Cubans from the island is that they are extremely naive. Even concepts like interest rates or frozen foods goes right over their heads. I can't image the abuse that they would have to endure if their country was suddenly opened up to the average 21st Century Predator.

 :dwarf: