Cayman Islands

[Windy]

These huge multinationals shouldn't be pumping the air with CO2 causing super hurricanes to form and destroy the islands that they call home, therefore causing the poor in helpless to revolt and steal...j/k...a little humor...really the country is full of banks, so all they have to do is buy some hired guns and clean house on these looting vagrants...the US shouldn't be obliged to help, come on, weve got over 100k troops in Iraq and we can't handle that....

Send over a squad or two of Marines to help protect the US citizens for a couple weeks is all it would take.

Sure, and next time a hurricane strikes, say, South Carolina, Britain can send over a squad or two of Royal Marines to help protect the handfull of Brits of who live there.

It's a British territorial island. I don't think we'll be invading it any time soon, and Britain has more than enough forces to cover the need, should they deem it worthwhile.

In the meantime -- they can hire some mercs. We're talking about companies that pay their execs upwards of 30 mil a year here. They can afford their own damned security.

[caneman]

These huge multinationals shouldn't be pumping the air with CO2 causing super hurricanes to form and destroy the islands that they call home, therefore causing the poor in helpless to revolt and steal...j/k...a little humor...really the country is full of banks, so all they have to do is buy some hired guns and clean house on these looting vagrants...the US shouldn't be obliged to help, come on, weve got over 100k troops in Iraq and we can't handle that....

Send over a squad or two of Marines to help protect the US citizens for a couple weeks is all it would take.

Sure, and next time a hurricane strikes, say, South Carolina, Britain can send over a squad or two of Royal Marines to help protect the handfull of Brits of who live there.

It's a British territorial island. I don't think we'll be invading it any time soon, and Britain has more than enough forces to cover the need, should they deem it worthwhile.

In the meantime -- they can hire some mercs. We're talking about companies that pay their execs upwards of 30 mil a year here. They can afford their own damned security.

Good try but slightly different situation as we have ample police and military protection in the US. Don't believe anyone said anything about invading anyone. And lastly, ahhhh, the liberal truth comes out - "those damn executives make 30 million a year". Those same executives happen to employ thousands upon thousands of people.

[Windy]

These huge multinationals shouldn't be pumping the air with CO2 causing super hurricanes to form and destroy the islands that they call home, therefore causing the poor in helpless to revolt and steal...j/k...a little humor...really the country is full of banks, so all they have to do is buy some hired guns and clean house on these looting vagrants...the US shouldn't be obliged to help, come on, weve got over 100k troops in Iraq and we can't handle that....

Send over a squad or two of Marines to help protect the US citizens for a couple weeks is all it would take.

Sure, and next time a hurricane strikes, say, South Carolina, Britain can send over a squad or two of Royal Marines to help protect the handfull of Brits of who live there.

It's a British territorial island. I don't think we'll be invading it any time soon, and Britain has more than enough forces to cover the need, should they deem it worthwhile.

In the meantime -- they can hire some mercs. We're talking about companies that pay their execs upwards of 30 mil a year here. They can afford their own damned security.

Good try but slightly different situation as we have ample police and military protection in the US. Don't believe anyone said anything about invading anyone. And lastly, ahhhh, the liberal truth comes out - "those damn executives make 30 million a year". Those same executives happen to employ thousands upon thousands of people.

Ah, yes, me with my neoconservative leanings, I must be a liberal.

My point is that Britain is responsible for any troop movements in the Caymen. I'm sure if they asked us for help, we'd provide. But we can't just start moving our troops willy-nilly into other countries we consider our friends without permission. Do you really think they'd allow us permission to go and do something in their land that their voters would likely perceive as something that they should be doing?

And, again: these are very wealthy companies. They can afford private protection. The only reason they are in the Caymans is to avoid paying taxes in America -- which, of course, is used to fund the military -- and so it seems only sweetly ironic that they're suddenly asking for the protection of the forces they are going waaaay out of their way to support.

But that's just my moral smugness in this -- the real issue is national sovreignity. Caymans = U.K. = we do not just drop Marines in there, just as you didn't see British special forces repelling down helicopters into NYC on 9/11, despite the chaos and the fact that some British citizens were in danger. You're being simplistic about the politics involved in this. The U.K. would not appreciate a couple of squads of uninvited U.S. Marines marching around their territory.

[Sanibel]

If the runways are open it is just a matter of hours before the British could land civil order troops in there by air transport. They could even send an emergency aid request to Canada to assist until the brits got organized.

Even the UN could dispatch emergency law and order troops if it became a matter of lawlessness endangering the safety of the public...

[Innotech]

why do people hate the rich so much? the rich cut your paychecks. The rich provide you with a damned job in the first place.
The rich also encompasses some of those who worked hard all their life from poverty to get where they are now, only for people to try to tax and steal them back to poverty. Leave the rich alone. Jealousy is greed.

[caneman]

These huge multinationals shouldn't be pumping the air with CO2 causing super hurricanes to form and destroy the islands that they call home, therefore causing the poor in helpless to revolt and steal...j/k...a little humor...really the country is full of banks, so all they have to do is buy some hired guns and clean house on these looting vagrants...the US shouldn't be obliged to help, come on, weve got over 100k troops in Iraq and we can't handle that....

Send over a squad or two of Marines to help protect the US citizens for a couple weeks is all it would take.

Sure, and next time a hurricane strikes, say, South Carolina, Britain can send over a squad or two of Royal Marines to help protect the handfull of Brits of who live there.

It's a British territorial island. I don't think we'll be invading it any time soon, and Britain has more than enough forces to cover the need, should they deem it worthwhile.

In the meantime -- they can hire some mercs. We're talking about companies that pay their execs upwards of 30 mil a year here. They can afford their own damned security.

Good try but slightly different situation as we have ample police and military protection in the US. Don't believe anyone said anything about invading anyone. And lastly, ahhhh, the liberal truth comes out - "those damn executives make 30 million a year". Those same executives happen to employ thousands upon thousands of people.

Ah, yes, me with my neoconservative leanings, I must be a liberal.

My point is that Britain is responsible for any troop movements in the Caymen. I'm sure if they asked us for help, we'd provide. But we can't just start moving our troops willy-nilly into other countries we consider our friends without permission. Do you really think they'd allow us permission to go and do something in their land that their voters would likely perceive as something that they should be doing?

And, again: these are very wealthy companies. They can afford private protection. The only reason they are in the Caymans is to avoid paying taxes in America -- which, of course, is used to fund the military -- and so it seems only sweetly ironic that they're suddenly asking for the protection of the forces they are going waaaay out of their way to support.

But that's just my moral smugness in this -- the real issue is national sovreignity. Caymans = U.K. = we do not just drop Marines in there, just as you didn't see British special forces repelling down helicopters into NYC on 9/11, despite the chaos and the fact that some British citizens were in danger. You're being simplistic about the politics involved in this. The U.K. would not appreciate a couple of squads of uninvited U.S. Marines marching around their territory.

I never said without Britains approval as it must certainly would have to come with their approval. Chances are we would never have to send anyone because they would probably rather protect our citizens with their own troops. Remember it is protection of the American citizens not the big bad corporation. I suppose it is also the employees fault because they shouldn't be working for a company that isn't paying taxes? How many thousands of additional employees do you suppose they are now able to pay by avoiding these taxes? Sorry, but your statement doesn't strike me as one of conservative politics. Never received a reply back on this from another poster so I'll pose it to you. If you owned a major company and could transfer you headquarters their to help it grow and expand would you do it? I'm sorry but this smells of the old Liberal line of it's someone elses fault, those darn greedy CEO's they're ripping us off, it's someone elses fault, blah, blah, blah. Insead of people going out and making a better life for themselves and working hard to get ahead they would rather sit back in idle and blame others for their own demise.

[caneman]

why do people hate the rich so much? the rich cut your paychecks. The rich provide you with a damned job in the first place.
The rich also encompasses some of those who worked hard all their life from poverty to get where they are now, only for people to try to tax and steal them back to poverty. Leave the rich alone. Jealousy is greed.

Bravo, well said. Ever notice that by far the people who hate the well off are also the same ones for their own lack of successes. It's easier to blame someone else rather than going out and working hard.

[Windy]

why do people hate the rich so much? the rich cut your paychecks. The rich provide you with a damned job in the first place.
The rich also encompasses some of those who worked hard all their life from poverty to get where they are now, only for people to try to tax and steal them back to poverty. Leave the rich alone. Jealousy is greed.

Such extremism is silly. Pragmatically, any powerbase will increase in power until constricted. For the most part, capitalism really, really works well, as the rich maximizing their power (money) entails supporting others, and the rich fighting each other for power keeps a natural equilibrium of power between entities. On the other hand, occasionally, "market forces" are not enough to keep a powerbase from doing more harm than good to society, which is why they all play within certain predefined constrictions. For example, a corporation cannot gun down its rivals, as that erodes at the powerbase of the government they are based within, who will then apply force to constrict their power. There are legitimate cases of corporations that do more harm than good to society (cough, cough ENRON), which is why we have rules constricting the power of corporate entities.

This is getting offtopic, so, if we must continue, lets do it in the offtopic forum.

[Chilly_Water]

I've been checking up on http://help.stormcarib.com/list.php?f=14 trying to find information on the devastation of the Caymans and ran across this BBC video. It seems to be the first video filed sine Ivan trampled through. I've been reading reports of a cover-up by the Caymanian govt' to downplay the incident and this report touches on the rumors a bit. My friend from the Caymans just flew in to Miami yesterday and didn't go into to much detail; seemed to still be in shock. She did say that the island is beginning to stink from sewage and decay from dead animals and that she'd been camping out on the second floor of her brother-in-law's house whose first floor was completely washed away. I'll report more when I get it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsa/n5ctrl/tvseq/bb_news_ost.ram
The report is ten minutes in and you need Real Player.

[frankthetank]

WOW!...that island looks like it took a direct hit form an A BOMB....this is a cover up...you see that governor stumble and hesitate....i feel bad, but living on a flat island in the middle of the ocean has its consequences...good story...you have to wait a while before the footage comes on...