Summary: A spike in terrorism cases involving U.S. citizens is challenging long-held assumptions that Muslims in Europe are more susceptible to radicalization than their better-assimilated counterparts in the United States. According to several U.S. and international terrorism analysts, immigration trends, the global spread of a militant Islamism, and controversial actions by the United States and its allies since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks increase the chances that U.S. Muslims could carry out a domestic attack. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 12, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that an investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee found that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior U.S. officials share much of the blame for detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He also reported that a suicide bomber struck a crowded restaurant near the northern Iraq city of Kirkuk where Kurdish officials were meeting with Arab tribal leaders, killing at least 55 people and wounding about 120 in the deadliest attack in Iraq in nearly six months.

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Summary: The closure of what may be China’s first mega-church is the most visible sign that the communist government is determined to rein in the rapid spread of Christianity, with a crackdown in recent months that church leaders call the harshest in years. In mid-September, 2009, hundreds of police and hired thugs descended on the Golden Lamp Church in Linfen, Shanxi province, smashing doors and windows, seizing Bibles, and sending dozens of worshippers to hospitals with serious injuries. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 11, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s 2008 Most Embarrassing Re-Elected Members of Congress report — which lists elected officials who have misused their position through illegal, unethical, or just plain outrageous conduct — features U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann.

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Summary: Finding Bin Laden: Here’s what we know about Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts, based on information from U.S. intelligence sources; analysis by NBC News senior investigative producer Robert Windrem. … Personality profiles of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri by Aubrey Immelman, Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 10, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that Thomas Fingar, Bush administration deputy director of national intelligence for analysis, had suggested the Iraq war was as much the failure of policymakers as the product of the flawed intelligence on which they relied. Fingar’s assessment reveals that decision-making on Iraq was marred by a strong sense of time pressure, a tendency among decision makers to seek concurrence on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, and a directive leadership style in the White House — all of which are well-established causes of groupthink. Furthermore, according to the Gayle Report, the Department of Defense knew before the start of the Iraq war in 2003 of the threats of mines and roadside bombs in Iraq but did nothing to acquire Mine Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicles ahead of the invasion — a level of overconfidence symptomatic of groupthink.

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Summary: Weekly report of U.S. military deaths in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), compiled from U.S. Department of Defense News Releases. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 9, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that a study by the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS) concluded that the Taliban insurgency was widening its presence in Afghanistan and “closing a noose around Kabul.” According to the report, titled “Struggle for Kabul: The Taliban Advance,” the Taliban “now holds a permanent presence in 72 percent of Afghanistan, up from 54 percent a year ago.”

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Summary: A suicide car bomb in Baghdad flattened a court building and an explosives-rigged ambulance blew down walls like dominos near the Finance Ministry in a wave of coordinated attacks that targeted high-profile symbols of Iraqi authority, killing at least 127 people and wounding more than 500. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 8, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that Taliban militants blasted their way into two transport terminals in Pakistan and torched more than 160 vehicles destined for U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan, in the biggest assault yet on a vital U.S. military supply line.

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Summary: For President Barack Obama, the economic cost of his Afghanistan surge plan proved troubling, after he received a private budget memo estimating that an expanded U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan would cost $1 trillion over 10 years, roughly the same as his health care reform plan. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 7, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that from Basra in the south to Irbil in the north, Iraqi activists are trying to counter the rising influence of religious fundamentalists and tribal chieftains who have insisted that women wear the veil, prevented girls from receiving education, and sanctioned killings of women accused of besmirching their family’s honor.

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Summary: Defense Secretary Robert Gates tells ABC News chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulos on ABC News “This Week” that the U.S. has not had any good intelligence on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden in “years.” … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 6, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that President George W. Bush, on a valedictory tour prior to leaving office, had admitted to a few previously unacknowledged errors, telling one interviewer that he was “unprepared for war” when he entered office and that his “biggest regret” was the failure of intelligence leading up to the Iraq invasion.

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Summary: Similarities between George W. Bush’s troop surge in Iraq and Barack Obama’s surge plan for Afghanistan belie the fact that there are few commonalities between the two war theaters. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 5, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that the number of terrorist attacks against police in northwestern Pakistan’s tribal regions bordering Afghanistan had increased from 113 in 2005 to 1,820 in 2007, and that police are outgunned, out-financed, and fighting a losing battle against Taliban insurgents.

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Summary: The November 30, 2009 national edition of the Washington Times features a full-page ad by the anti-Obama website ProtectOurLiberty.org, claiming that President Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States. The ad copy claims that under a 60-year-old British law, President Obama is a citizen of Britain and “is currently also a British protected person and/or a British citizen to this day.” ProtectOurLiberty.org is run by Charles F. Kerchner, Jr., a plaintiff in a birther lawsuit filed against President Obama in New Jersey. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 4, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that New York University journalism professor Charles Seife had written a New York Times op-ed column proposing an interesting resolution to the tight U.S. Senate contest in Minnesota between incumbent Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and Democratic challenger Al Franken: cast a lot to determine the winner by chance.

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Summary: Adapting to rising seas and higher temperatures is expected to be a big topic at the U.N. climate-change talks in Copenhagen, along with the projected cost — hundreds of billions of dollars, much of it going to countries that cannot afford to do it themselves. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 3, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that Bush administration Defense Secretary Robert Gates signaled a willingness to forge ahead with two key priorities for the incoming Obama administration: accelerating the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and shutting down the Guantanamo Bay detention center. He also reported that President-elect Barack Obama’s national security team would include two veteran cold warriors — former NATO commander Gen. James L. Jones as national security adviser and Robert M. Gates as defense secretary — and a political rival — Hillary Clinton as secretary of state — whose records are all more hawkish than the new president’s.

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