Tony,
First and foremost, your post reminds me that the sitting government under investigation is most likely Haiti. That would kill two birds with one stone for the Republicans who hate Aristide anyway. Our discussion would be totally moot were it not for the fact that there is no shortage of money laundering politicians in the DR too.
You and I agree that the US government's only legitimate interest should be in that which benefits the US government. But we disagree on whether the constant propping-up by the US of the corrupt political and military classes in Latin America furthers that interest. This political class, with the help of US foreign policy and development banks and IMF/World Bank money, simply administers poverty with the few dollars that they don't steal. This policy is amoral - which you don't care about - but also, I suspect, is not good for the US in the long run.
Would it not be better for the US were the DR, Venezuela, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras growing markets for US trade? Wouldn't policies that create a consumer class (i.e. middle class) benefit US business more than the few public works projects that US companies now get from these countries from US government backed development banks. If yes, then supporting people like Hippo will never achieve it. The likes of Hippo should be starved out with no international financial assistance for the DR.
Tony, the Cold War is over. The US does not even arguably have to support criminal regimes anymore.
Your post implies that money laundering is good for the DR, and I agree that it is a big part of the current economy. An end to the war on drugs and the US policy of propping up criminals would mean short term pain (money laundering dollars drying up) and long term gain (political stability, reduction of criminals in goverment, diversion of resources to legitimate business, reduction in crime) to the DR.
Finally, as you saw in Cuba and Iran, and now in Venezuela, this policy forments spite against the US and when it fails it really fails big.