The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has ruled that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act does not apply to detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, “[1] effectively ruling that the detainees are not persons at all for purposes of U.S. law.” The Court also ruled that torture is a “foreseeable consequence” of military detention. You can read the entire ruling [2] here (PDF).

It seems as though the lessons of history have not had any effect on this segment of the US judiciary. The abhorrent justifications for the enslavement of Africans during the periods of colonialism and the imprisonment and genocide of ethnic groups in WWII seem to have been forgotten. They too were judged as “less than human.”