Food For Thought, Force-Fed

What is interesting about the force-feeding of inmates at Guantanamo is, first of all, that you have a bunch of supposedly radical, violent Islamists espousing a protest technique, the stubbornly self-destructive fast, first used to any effect by Mahatma Gandhi against the British Empire. Secondly, and equally interesting, is the fact that the British never force-fed their fasting rebel, even though they could have. Because it’s not as though the technology of force-feeding didn’t exist back in the early 20^th century–it involves nothing more than a few stout nurses, a long wiggly tube, some lubrication, pureed food, and cruelty.