Even before the force-feeding procedures were leaked, international organizations were protesting the practice. The United Nations Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights released a statement in early May calling the continued detention in Guantánamo a “flagrant violation of international human rights law” and categorizing the force-feeding at the prison as “cruel, inhuman and degrading.” Dr. Steven Miles, a professor of medicine and bioethics at the University of Minnesota, who has done a great deal of research into the practice of force-feeding, said: “The persistence of the military’s force-feeding policy in the face of international law, and the manner in which it is done, constitutes torture.”

Here is the most infuriating part. President Obama is on record as saying that America should never practice torture. He has also, of course, called for Guantánamo to be closed down.

Without question, any effort he might make to shut down the prison would be met with resistance in Congress; it’s already begun. But the practice of force-feeding detainees, which virtually every international body condemns as a violation of international law — and which they decry as cruel and inhuman? He could stop that in a heartbeat, with one call to the Pentagon.

After all, he is the commander in chief.

Isn’t he?