Rep. Dennis Ross Wants to Stop Suspected Terrorists From Playing Soccer
No more soccer for terrorists! That's the message from Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Fla., who has offered an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act to eliminate taxpayer-funded recreational activities for detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
What kinds of activities are available, you ask? Well, among other things, there is a soccer field that cost the federal government about $750,000 to build. Guantanamo officials said last year that giving the inmates some physical activity made the job of the guard force easier. But Ross sees it as wasting money to coddle the worst of the worst.
"Guantanamo Bay should not be a place of comfort; rather, it should house the world's most dangerous terrorists in a humane manner, providing only the bare essentials," he said in a statement.
Chances are, however, that the soccer field isn't getting much use nowadays, as it's pretty tough to play on a completely empty stomach. Of the 166 prisoners on the base, about 100 of them are currently on hunger strikes. Forty-one of those men are being force fed to keep them alive.
