Politics & Power Quote by Diane Feinstein

Feinstein frames Guantanamo not as a moral scandal, but as a strategic self-inflicted wound - a choice that keeps paying dividends to America’s enemies. The line is built for a Washington audience that distrusts humanitarian arguments: she starts with “national security interest,” then treats human rights as a consequential variable inside the security equation. It’s politics as translation: turning ethical critique into threat assessment.

Her most revealing move is the catalog of who “uses” Guantanamo: “not only al-Qaida, but also... other nations, governments, and individuals - people good and bad.” That parenthetical is a quiet concession to realpolitik. She’s acknowledging that propaganda doesn’t require saintly messengers; even allies, neutral states, and domestic critics can weaponize the image. “Good and bad” also signals a refusal to collapse all criticism into enemy talking points, while still arguing that the end result is strategically corrosive.

The subtext is that American power depends on narrative discipline. Guantanamo becomes less a detention facility than a global meme: “a symbol of America’s abuse of Muslims.” Feinstein isn’t litigating whether that symbol is fair; she’s warning that symbols function regardless of intent. Her phrase “fanning the flames” borrows the language of insurgency and radicalization, suggesting the prison operates as a recruitment accelerant and diplomatic handicap at once.

Context matters: post-9/11 counterterror policy had hardened into institutional inertia, and “close it” had become both a campaign promise and a governance quagmire. Feinstein’s intent is to reopen the case by arguing that the status quo isn’t tough - it’s tactically sentimental, clinging to a prison that advertises America’s exceptions to its own rules.