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I think it's perfectly fine to offer and receive mutual aid in times of natural disaster. For instance, a couple of years ago there were some bad floods in Germany. Poland sort of shyly and tentatively asked whether they could send some of their army units to help out ... and Germany sort of embarrassedly and gratefully said, yes, please. In a way, that disaster did more to help mend Polish-German relations after WWII than all the politicians making speeches.
Cuba has some of the best medical schools in the Caribbean; they regularly send doctors to hurricane-blasted places in South America. And they're really good at dealing with that sort of disaster ... and making friends with other countries in the area. The US's reaction when Cuba offered to help after Katrina was a little bit hysterical, I thought. We demand your help--but not yours! It was sort of like Iran refusing US aid after their big earthquake a couple of years back.
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