By the time we reach the town of Salar, only 50 miles south of Kabul, we have already passed five tractor-trailers from military convoys that have been destroyed by the Taliban. The highway, newly rebuilt courtesy of $250 million, most of it from U.S. taxpayers, is pocked by immense craters, most of them caused by roadside bombs planted by Taliban fighters.

As they say, read the whole (rather lengthy) thing.

Which returns us to my starting point, about the distinction between training for something and training to resist it. One used to be told—and surely with truth—that the lethal fanatics of al-Qaeda were schooled to lie, and instructed to claim that they had been tortured and maltreated whether they had been tortured and maltreated or not. Did we notice what a frontier we had crossed when we admitted and even proclaimed that their stories might in fact be true? I had only a very slight encounter on that frontier, but I still wish that my experience were the only way in which the words “waterboard” and “American” could be mentioned in the same (gasping and sobbing) breath.

You may find this video distressing.

While it is true that the individual suicide bomber cannot be deterred, the main conclusion of this article is that deterrence towards terrorist organizations is possible. Israel has achieved temporary and fragile deterrence vis- à-vis Hezbollah and the Palestinians over the years. There is no doubt that some periods of relative quiet have derived from a desire not to provoke an Israeli reaction to a terrorist attack that would neutralize any benefit from such an attack. This occasional tactical deterrence has been achieved not by the threat of force or by an image of Israel ’s capability (after all, the terrorist organization is, by definition, struggling against a much stronger adversary), but by actual application of force and by inducing the fear that the force would be reapplied and even increased.

Deterrence of this type is difficult to distinguish from disruption or from operational considerations that dictate when and where to perform acts of terrorism — as opposed to deterrence that deals with whether or not to do it. Deterrence in such cases does not take effect immediately after force has been applied, but after a period of situation estimate, and after some time its effects begin to wear off. One may say that effective deterrence has an element of dramaturgy; a gun that fires in the first act is no longer relevant for dramatic purposes in the last act. The “audience” gets used to the shots and the deterrence is eroded. Hence, it is necessary from time to time to refresh the awareness of the terrorist leadership that the state will indeed employ force. To paraphrase a well-known expression of classic deterrence, the state that attempts to deter terrorism must “ speak loudly and periodically use a big stick.

Go to C & L to watch the video.

Rear Adm Harris said he did not believe the men had killed themselves out of despair.

“They are smart. They are creative, they are committed,” he said, quoted by Reuters.

“They have no regard for life, either ours or their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.”

It’s very smart and creative alright. They really do have no regard for their lives? It was an act of asymmetrical warfare?

It actually reads like something from the Daily Show. Even if these guys were cold-blooded murderers, would they still commit suicide as a method of ‘asymmetrical warfare’? I could understand if they took some of the guards down with them, ala suicide bombing, but what purpose does it serve by simply taking your own life?

In fact, given that these men are incarcerated without trial, without due process, without recourse, and without the normal system open to murderers on US soil, why would they do such a thing.

I have to apply a form of Occam’s Razor (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem)to this and ask, what is more likely the simplest reason? That they commited suicide as an act of war against the US, or that they were driven to it after 4 or 5 years of internment and extreme interrogation?

You decide.

Whether or not his death will affect the overall insurgency remains to be seen. It could be just as likely that his successor will carry on as ever, though without the same propaganda effect Zarqawi had, having evaded capture for so long.

Incidentally, the notorious US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, will be on Newsnight tonight, discussing the death of Zarqawi, and probably his recent run-ins over the comments of Mark Brown.

A passenger claiming to have a bomb on board an American Airlines plane in Miami has been shot and wounded by a US federal officer, officials have said.

The passenger, who has been arrested, was challenged by the air marshal after he seemed to reach into a bag. He tried to flee and was shot.

The incident is said to have occurred on the jetway between the plane and the airport terminal.

The plane had just arrived from Colombia, and was headed to Orlando.

Notes the NY Times:

The Central Intelligence Agency has asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation to determine the source of a Washington Post article that said the agency had set up a covert prison network in Eastern Europe and other countries to hold important terrorism suspects, government officials said on Tuesday.

The C.I.A.’s request, known as a crimes report or criminal referral, means that the Justice Department will undertake a preliminary review to determine if circumstances justify a criminal inquiry into whether any government official unlawfully provided information to the newspaper. The possibility of this new investigation follows by less than two weeks the perjury and obstruction indictment of I. Lewis Libby Jr., then Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, in a leak case involving other news reporting about a national security issue.

The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.

The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.

In the missive, Zawahiri apparently warns tactics such as the killing of hostages and bombings of mosques may alienate the “Muslim masses,” Mr Whitman said.

“In this letter, he talks about believing that the eventual governance of Iraq must include the Muslim masses, and that they are at risk of alienating those,” he told reporters.

The letter was also said to detail the strategy of Muslim extremists to create an Islamic state centred on Iraq that could expand into neighbouring countries.

Zawahiri included a plea for financial support, Reuters news agency quoted Mr Whitman as saying.

The New York Times quoted a senior official as saying that the 6,000-word letter was dated early in July, and was obtained by US forces involved in counterterrorism operations in Iraq.

The letter also noted that they were losing in Afghanistan and they had lost many of their key leaders. Zawahiri is also badly in need of money apparently.

According to Reuters, the fun-loving organisation has published web adverts “asking for supporters to help put together its Web statements and video montages”, or more precisely, it has “vacant positions for video production and editing statements, footage and international media coverage about militants in Iraq, the Palestinian territories, Chechnya and other conflict zones where militants are active.”

The advert was spotted by London-based Arabic publication Asharq al-Awsat which notes that al-Qaeda-linked web presence the Global Islamic Media Front promises to “follow up with members interested in joining and contact them via email”. It does not, though, specify how wannabes should make their applications, nor does it state a salary.

With regard to the latter, Asharq al-Awsat notes: “Every Muslim knows his life is not his, since it belongs to this violated Islamic nation whose blood is being spilt. Nothing should take precedence over this.” We take this to mean that successful applicants should not expect a six-figure salary, 28 days paid leave, a company car or health insurance, although you probably get a company AK-47 thrown in as part of the package.

Earlier this summer, there was talk of Guantánamo being shut down. Patrick Leahy, the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, called it a “national disgrace�? and “the primary recruiting tool for our enemies�?. George Bush also seemed to wobble on the issue. But Mr Rumsfeld, who has just spent $100m refurbishing the camp, has never wavered from the idea that America needs a place to hold people indefinitely. If you want to create a “legal black hole�?, to use the words of a British law lord, it is certainly a lot easier to do so outside the American mainland.

But what about the Supreme Court’s ruling in June last year giving Guantánamo detainees the right to challenge their detention in American courts? The justices, alas, did not give any details as to how this could happen. The administration promptly set up review panels to determine whether detainees had been rightly designated as “enemy combatants�?; all but 38 of the 558 detainees had their status confirmed. Banned from attending the proceedings, their lawyers have dismissed them as a sham.

Dozens of habeas corpus lawsuits are working their way up through the federal courts. In January this year, a Washington, DC, district court judge ruled that the detainees were entitled to challenge their detention in normal courts. But a few days later, another district court judge issued a contradictory ruling. Both sides have appealed (oral arguments were heard by the DC appeals court this month), but the issue will surely go to the Supreme Court.

What appears to have gone largely unreported is that many of the current ‘prisoners’ are on hunger strike.

Over the past month, more than 100 detainees have been on hunger strike in protest against their indefinite detention without charge. Many have been held for nearly four years. A military spokesman said this week that 85 were still refusing food, including 15 hardliners who were undergoing “involuntary feeding�? in hospital. Preventing prisoners from harming themselves was part of “standard operating procedures�? in both American civilian and military prisons, he said.

Although not specifically banned under international law, force-feeding of prisoners is prohibited under the World Medical Association’s 1975 Declaration of Tokyo, which has been endorsed by the American Medical Association. The International Committee of the Red Cross also strongly advises against it. Its use in Guantánamo is likely to further enflame anti-American sentiment among Muslims; on the other hand, it may be preferable to a succession of deaths in Guantánamo.

I tend to agree with comments Ann-Marie Slaughter made at the Terrorism and Security Conference in Washington earlier this month - Gitmo is essentially America shooting itself in the foot, do as we say but not as we do.