Under the NDAA, the president is granted the authority to indefinitely detain and torture anyone, including American citizens, without bringing them to trial. Although officials say it only affirms detention provisions from earlier legislation, the signing started a slippery slope which could indeed eventually see to it that anyone suspected of a “belligerent act” be put behind bars without a trial.
Looking at the case of one prisoner at Guantanamo:
Musa'ab al-Madhwani had barely entered adulthood when he first arrived at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in 2002. But in the months between his capture in Pakistan and transfer to Gitmo, the Yemeni national experienced more than most would see in a lifetime. Before he turned 23, he says he was beaten and kicked, threatened with death and suspended by his hands in an underground torture chamber.
Now for the prisoner, about to celebrate the 10-year-anniversary of his arrival at Gimo, the rest of that lifetime looks to be spent behind bars thanks to the NDAA.
In a statement filed by his attorneys, they describe Musa'ab al-Madhwani as an “easy-going teenager” before he was recruited in a coffee shop by strangers who promised him “a month-long adventure" in 2001. Al-Madhwani agreed, but regretted his decision after being forced into a military training camp in Afghanistan. After al-Qaeda operatives destroyed the Twin Towers, the Afghan facility where he was trained was shut down. He attempted to return to his home in Yemen, but ended up unable to make the trip. In 2002, al-Madhwani found himself living from house-to-house while trying to figure out a way to make it back to Yemen. Eventually authorities closed in a group of insurgents, and al-Madhwani happened to be on the scene....
Attorneys for al-Madhwani filed a petition last year to ask the court to re-investigate the case and perhaps finally bring the detainee before a jury for his alleged crimes. In their response, the United States Supreme Court writes that the ongoing detention of this “model prisoner” is perfectly by-the-books, as the National Defense Authorization Act allows it....
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges filed a lawsuit against the president earlier this month challenging the legality of the NDAA. In an explanation of the suit, Hedges wrote, “I have had dinner more times than I can count with people whom this country brands as terrorists,” adding, “But that does not make me one.” Regardless, any affiliation with a group branded as such could lead authorities to leap to such conclusions....
As seen with al-Madhwani, however, even American authorities don’t consider him a threat. He was barely a child when he accidentally found himself on the wrong side of a war with America and for it he was detained and tortured in at least two different facilities by Pakistanis and Americans alike before arriving at Guantanamo. Now a decade later, the NDAA will see to it that the rest of his life will be spent behind bars in the US military prison.
