[Rick Lee]

China refused our help when they had a monster quake in the mid-70's that killed over 200,000. Plenty of places refuse our help and for a variety of reasons. Sadly, the main reason is probably that they don't know how to issue visas quickly to people from countries with whom they have no diplomatic relations. But then there's the whole shame issue, in which they don't want outsiders seeing how backwards their country really is. And there are espionage concerns as well and they are not unfounded. We may not have been the largest monetary donor after the tsunami of 2004. But we were the only country with the military assets in the neighborhood that could rescue people and deliver relief very quickly. I'm sure a place like Myanmar doesn't want any American spies mixed in with relief workers.