Of course all american replys are in favour of a presence in the DR.
I'm not an American, but rather a Dominican 'hasta la tambora' and I am in favor of this presence.
For one, it will create much needed jobs as Texas Bill has pointed out and it will have a positive impact on the economy.
Second, it has already been agreed that this base will be created, thus any opinions to the contrary will not cause much change and its not as if the public were ever going to be included into such agreements in anycase.
These are military agreements, they hardly take the public's opinion in consideration, except when such agreements are stratigically unimportant as was the case with Vieques and the anti-US military sentiment there.
Third, there is a thin line which divides pure hate towards the US and all things American and simply seeing the US and its institutions for what they are, which is not to say to see it as an all good thing, because its not that either.
The US and its institutions have their positive and negative points and both must be recognize.
However, the installation of this base will do nothing other than offer a new source of economic development in a certain region of the DR. The DR has little to no agency when it comes to making deals with the US (whether they are economic, military, etc), so the presence of this base will not change a thing from that perspective.
In fact, if the US truly wanted to invade the DR they could do it at the blink of an eye and no one will be able to do or say much that is meaningful in changing the actions. Just look at Iraq, despite the largest protests in human history, Iraq got invaded no matter what and we are talking about a country the size of California. Imagine the DR, the size of NYC in population and Vermong and New Hampshire combined in territory!
Even I am not oblivious to the US military influence in the Caribbean region!
-NALs