P1. As you say, we agree to a point. And then we diverge. I advocate jumping in without an invitation where the situation is sufficiently dire. I allow a lot of leeway because a nation is sovereign, and its citizens have a right to solve their own problems in their own way. But after that, where poverty and/or disease has overrun the whole country, intervention is a compelling obligation.

I think the American analogy is a bad one, all the 13 colonies wanted was "freedom". The people were not starving and their lives was not at risk under the Crown. Nor were their assets (apart from the fact Britain wanted the colonies to contibute towards their own defence ... After all, it was they who provoked the French in the first place - an incompetent officer in the Virginia Militia participating in the ambush and murder of French Canadians in Jumonville Glen, for example - so they should have paid something: instead they virtually bankrupted Great Britain and said the British were cheating them! But that's another argument.) Remember, the American colonials enjoyed some of the highest standards of living in the world, even back then, so there was no need for France and Spain (or Holland, Sweden or Russia for that matter) to intervene on humanitarian grounds. They intervened for political reasons only.

P2. Their wealth goes into the pockets of their elite ... OK - no argument there, except to say that not all of their wealth goes into the pockets of their elite: much of it goes into the pockets of the West which exploits them so efficiently (I wanted to say ruthlessly).

As we have helped ourselves to so much of their wealth, it behoves us to assist them in their development now.

P3 ...

P4 We buy as many boats as they need. We can afford it. Our debt is simply an overdrawn current account due to a sudden contraction of the market. If the "crunch" had not taken place, we would happily be spending the money our governments are being forced to lend, that and more, no doubt. We have oodles of wealth stashed away in the form of land, labour, industry, property, minerals, natural resources, bank deposits and investments - including investments in poor nations, to name just a few. Don't believe the West can't pay its way and is overburdened with debt. It can and it isn't.