At Gitmo, a tough policy to swallow

President Barack Obama is a champion of using video cameras to prevent and expose misconduct by uniformed people with guns. He is also a great believer in banning the use of torture on detainees in the war on terror. It may come as a surprise, then, to find that he doesn’t want to release videos of Guantanamo inmates being force-fed.

Force-feeding of prisoners is generally recognized as a cruel practice. Obama has expressed reservations about it even as he has approved its continued use. The logic of his two positions comes right out of “Alice in Wonderland”: If the images never become public, there is no evidence that he allows torture.