According to the July 5, 2010 Tico Times, "Costa Rica has granted the U.S. military a six-month window to bring 7,000 Marines, five planes and 46 warships into its territory".
The 31-8 vote of the Legislative Assembly was presumably "to help stem the flow of drugs northward".
Laura Chinchilla, Costa Rica's first female president who won a landslide victory in February, has recently been overheard "off the record" saying that the real purpose for the influx of U.S. Marines is to "provide an economic stimulus for the economic downturn in sex tourism".
If this boon to the legal prostitution industry is extended past December 2010, then the thousands of drunken U.S. sailors getting laid at every corner in San Jose' might even provide a "sustainable" replacement for both the medical and eco-tourism industries in Costa Rica.
"Condoms have been flying off the shelves" according to local pharmacies in anticipation of the "ships coming in"!
