Mon Jan 2, 2012 3:15PM GMT

A political analyst says under the provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), signed into law by Barack Obama, Americans opposed to US policies will be arrested as “suspected terrorist”.

US President Barack Obama has just implemented "Police State USA", Michel Chossudovsky, the director of the Center for Research on Globalization, wrote in an article published on the Global Research website on Sunday.

“The passage of NDAA is intimately related to Washington's global military agenda. The military pursuit of Worldwide hegemony also requires the 'Militarization of the Homeland', namely the demise of the American Republic,” the US professor and economist said.

The NDAA, which Obama signed into law on the eve of 2012, provides USD 662 billion in funding for military spending, including military pay raises, weapon systems and funding for the war in Afghanistan in 2012.

The law, which passed by wide majority in Congress, also states the US military has the power to detain terrorist suspects without trial for as long as the so-called US global anti-terror campaign is waged.

The act further contains several provisions that rights groups and advocates have vehemently opposed, arguing that NDAA allows indefinite detention and interrogation of US citizens and non-citizens suspected of being linked to terrorism and deny them legal rights protected by the constitution.

In a statement accompanying his signature, the US president expressed “serious reservations” about provisions related to the detention and interrogation of suspected terrorists, saying that he might not strictly follow certain requirements spelled out in the new law.

“My administration will interpret and implement the provisions … in a manner that best preserves the flexibility on which our safety depends and upholds the values on which this country was founded," Obama said in the NDAA signing statement.

"I want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens," Obama said. “Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation.”

Chossudovsky said Obama's disclaimers were merely a “smokescreen,” adding that if Obama really found the bill unacceptable, “he could have either vetoed the NDAA (H.R. 1540) or sent it back to Congress with his objections.”

“The tendency is towards the establishment of a totalitarian State, a military government dressed in civilian clothes,” Chossudovsky said. “The NDAA authorizes the arbitrary and indefinite military detention of American citizens.”

The NDAA also bans the use of government money to transfer Guantanamo Bay detainees to the United States, again in an attempt to force the administration to try them in military rather than civil courts.

Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, said “By signing this defense spending bill, President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law.”

“The NDAA is 'Obama's New Year's Gift' to the American People. ...,” Chossudovsky concluded.

HMV/AZ/HGH