Leave now.

Editor,

Gifts from the US always take the form of military hardware, training military units in repression of democratic movements, crowd control technology, and how to violate human rights in as intimidating a manner as possible, worse even than the tactics used by the NYPD.

American business installs puppet regimes that crush and impoverish the local workforce and extract profits to off-shore (not domestic US) bank accounts.

American military planners and right-wing politicians cram the "war on drugs" and the "war on terrorism" down the throats of developing economies, further militarizing US client states.

The bad news is that as the US is kicked out of more corners of the developing world, the only targets for exploitation and repression left for the military-corporate machine to plunder are within the borders of the USA.

Now is a good time to leave if you can swing it.

Re: "China’s Cash Buys Inroads in Caribbean" (4/8/2012)