Sad But True

Your guess is as good as mine, but if they are where you say they are I have one question. Why wasn't I invited?

I’ll try and sum it up as briefly as possible. First, if you communicate with people in the ME you are right to be concerned because of the way the NDAA expands the scope of the original AUMF. The AUMF targets those responsible for 9/11 and those who harbored those responsible for 9/11. The NDAA expands that to include anyone or any group that “substantially supports” al Qaeda, the Taliban, or any “associated forces.” That casts a pretty broad net. What is substantial support? What defines an associated force? There’s too much room for individual interpretation for my taste. Also, the power to detain without trial lasts “until the end of hostilities.” Translation: forever.

This vagueness carries over into the sections about whether or not American citizens can be detained. One part says they can’t, but only if they are captured on American soil. So say you go to visit friends in the ME who by some definition fit into either the substantial support or associated forces category. You may be on your way to Gitmo before you know it.

Another section says that only the “requirement” of military detention doesn’t apply to US citizens. It’s an option, presumably left to the discretion of the president. In Obama’s signing statement he says his administration won’t militarily detain citizens, but that doesn’t bind future administrations. Odds are pretty good that at some point in the future we’re going to have another President Nixon or another VP Cheney, or God forbid a President Gingrich or Santorum. What they might do with these powers and who they might construe to be a threat to national security and eligible for indefinite detention is frightening. I don’t trust any president, Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, Whig, or Bull Moose party with that kind of power.

I hate to make a request dez but you always seem to make sense out of things in a way I can't. Any way I can talk you into a "sum up" of the national defence authorization act? I have several friends in the middle east and I talk to them on im, email, and even phone calls. This has me scared to death.