> Actually, I think the best thing to do would be to ship firearms over to
> any legitimate freedom fighters so they can take out the evil leaders
> responsible for keeping their countries in poverty.
Not a good idea; the freedom fighters of today are the "evil leaders"
of tomorrow. All you'd do is waste more billions to finance the next
crisis. Do we really need to create more Saddams?
Actually, the only thing that might help is to reintroduce strict colonial
rule, although it might be too late for that now. In any case it would
be monstrously expensive, bad PR and would almost certainly backfire.
Since nothing really seems to work then what's there left to do (assuming
that you find this a high-priority issue, which from a purely rational point of
view it isn't)? Probably the best course of action would be redirecting the
bulk of foreign aid towards scientific projects, especially nanotech-related
ones. A replicator in every home should pretty much do the trick. Um,
unless the governments don't like it, of course.
> All financial and
> food aid should cease unless we know for sure that it isn't lining the
> pockets of various corrupt government officials. (Tens of billions of
> Western dollars have already gone down the toilet and we don't need to
> waste more!)
Don't hold your breath!