The Current Discussion: A U.S. military tribunal court has convicted Osama bin Laden's driver Salim Hamdan of providing material support for terrorism after detaining him for nearly seven years. Is this a step forward or a step back in the war or terror?

The United States has just convicted the first of the Guantanamo detainees accused of terrorism. It's a step forward. It most likely was an imperfect trial, with many procedural deficiencies, but that is better than what has been happening so far: people imprisoned without the right to a fair trial. I am not sure that this was a fair trial, but at least it was a trial. Unfortunately, in its war against Al Qaeda, the United States has violated many of the principles on which the nation stands. The United States may not torture, even though the al-Qaeda murderers and their henchmen do it. Nor can it incarcerate suspects for years without bringing them to justice. That's called kidnapping, even if the people are guilty. If the United States is a country guided by the rule of law, not a banana republic, it has to impart justice by means of fair laws based on the spirit of the Constitution.

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Almost 20 years ago, as the Soviet Union tottered, I chatted with Boris Yeltsin and came to two odd conclusions: he liked to drink vodka in the mornings and had lost all his faith in communism. I never learned whether alcohol, contrary to what usually happens, cleared his mind, but it may have. He was more brilliant in his cups than sober. At that time, his main fear was that the KGB might kill him by paralyzing his heart with some special waves emitted by a secret weapon. I insisted on talking about perestroika and he went on about his fear of being assassinated. Perhaps it was understandable.

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The Current Discussion: What's the next likely target of Russia's reassertion of power?

The Kremlin's next step in its confrontation with the United States could be the establishment of some sort of military alliance with Cuba and Venezuela. One possibility is the reopening of an electronic surveillance base designed to spy on U.S. communications, similar to "Lourdes," the huge espionage center that operated near Havana until a few years ago, when Putin himself decided to close it. That facility now houses a university center for computer sciences, from which at least 100 advanced students, all members of the Communist Youth, participate in an intense propaganda war waged on the Internet in favor of the Cuban dictatorship and Marxist ideology.

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