It could help local economies with an influx of foreign investment and employed workers.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUKADD25267520071022
By Phil Stewart
NAPLES (Reuters) - Ecuador's leftist President Rafael Correa said Washington must let him open a military base in Miami if the United States wants to keep using an air base on Ecuador's Pacific coast.
Correa has refused to renew Washington's lease on the Manta air base, set to expire in 2009. U.S. officials say it is vital for counter-narcotics surveillance operations on Pacific drug-running routes.
"We'll renew the base on one condition: that they let us put a base in Miami -- an Ecuadorean base," Correa said in an interview during a trip to Italy.
"If there's no problem having foreign soldiers on a country's soil, surely they'll let us have an Ecuadorean base in the United States."
The U.S. embassy to Ecuador says on its Web site that anti-narcotics flights from Manta gathered information behind more than 60 percent of illegal drug seizures on the high seas of the Eastern Pacific last year.
It offers a fact-sheet on the base at: http://ecuador.usembassy.gov/topics_of_interest/manta-fol.html
Correa, a popular leftist economist, had promised to cut off his arm before extending the lease that ends in 2009 and has called U.S. President George W. Bush a "dimwit".
But Correa, an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, told Reuters he believed relations with the United States were "excellent" despite the base closing.
He rejected the idea that the episode reflected on U.S. ties at all.
"This is the only North American military base in South America," he said.
"So, then the other South American countries don't have good relations with the United States because they don't have military bases? That doesn't make any sense."
Got to admit Correa has a point. I guess we'll just have to overthrow his government to get what we want. Or perhaps offer another country as good a deal. Perhaps park an aircraft carrier off shore to do put up flights to gather information. Of course that is expensive (even though we've had one or two in gulf for about 20 years now, right)?
how 'bout we say okay...and pull all our personnel AND their expenditures out of the country...wonder what the loss of revenue would be and whether or not they'd find something as profitable to put in its place?
Unfortunately, he is probably be supported by revenue from Venezuela's oil wells.
Someone teach me an easier way to quote text, please....
"how 'bout we say okay...and pull all our personnel AND their expenditures out of the country...wonder what the loss of revenue would be and whether or not they'd find something as profitable to put in its place?"
Most the money goes to American corporations looking to rape and pillage their industries. They'd probably welcome it.
When did conservatism become imperialist? My ninth grade social studies teacher lied to me. I would have been better off not paying attention.
Charlatan, I use the "Edit" on the top of my screen. I run my cursor across what I want to copy to highlight it, the click "Edit", and under that "Copy", I start a new comment, and then do "Paste" to put the quote into the new comment. As an example:
"how 'bout we say okay...and pull all our personnel AND their expenditures out of the country...wonder what the loss of revenue would be and whether or not they'd find something as profitable to put in its place?"
I started this comment, highlighted the above by running the cursor acorss it, and going to "Edit", "Copy", and then going back to my new comment, and "clicking" "Paste" in the "Edit" button(?)
This edit function works well with taxt but not tables.
and _ before and after what you want to highlight will turn the text into italics.
_ testing _ without the spaces looks like this: testing
a * before and after what you want to highlight will turne the text into bold.
* testing * without the spaces looks like this: testing
a q. before what you want to highlight, followed by q.. after what you want to highlight will put the text into a shaded box.
(I made myself a cheat sheet with this on it because I was having a hard time remembering...lol)