Is Guantanamo a Terrorist-Recruitment Tool?

In his last year in office, President Obama has submitted to Congress a plan to achieve what he had promised to do in his first: Close the facility housing terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In the interim, Obama and a series of other officials, including former CIA Director David Petraeus, have called the prison a propaganda tool for terrorists. Shuttering the detention center, Obama argues, would eliminate that tool.

There are other reasons to close Guantanamo. In 2008, then-candidate Obama campaigned against what he portrayed as the excesses of the and that Guantanamo came to symbolize. On Tuesday, Obama listed several more reasons: things like saving taxpayer money, upholding “the values that define us as Americans,” and removing an irritant in relationships with close allies. There’s also the matter of reputation: The prison, Obama said, “undermines our standing in the world. It is viewed as a stain on our broader record of upholding the highest standards of rule of law.”