$114 Million Suburban tract home housing units
$27 Million Two baseball fields, a football field complete with uprights and a running track are part of the Cooper Field complex. Go Kart tracks and Volleyball courts were also built, but are not used.
$26 Million Eight mile stretch of road improvements along the naval station's border with Cuba.
$3.5 million 27 renovated playgrounds across the base, with $1.6 million allotted for additional playgrounds.
All considerations on legality aside, I am most struck by all the amenities that the Navy paid for its service members. Morale, welfare and recreation spending is a necessary part of military expenditures, but in Iraq that means a gym, a computer center and a room with video games. It defines irony that the military base that has come to signify American injustice and negligence also enjoys a disparately higher standard of living compared to other posts.
John, I really appreciate this post and couldn't agree more with its sentiments. I wouldn't be surprised if the goal of the U.S. was to spend an exorbitant amount of money on Guantanamo Bay to make it seem like it couldn't possibly be a place where torture occurs. Especially with the backlash that the Bush Administration faced with regards to closing Guantanamo and giving the captives there a certain degree of American rights, including the right to habeas corpus, it seems that these expenditures might have been a way for the American government to be able to brush aside criticism. While ultimately no amount of money could force us to ignore the torture tactics that were being used at Guantanamo, I believe that the expenditures John detailed were meant for that exact purpose.
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