Current Events and the Psychology of Politics
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Archive for January, 2011


Summary: Citing North Korea’s development of intercontinental ballistic missiles and its efforts to expand its nuclear weapons capability, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said North Korea will pose a direct threat to the United States within five years if the communist dictatorship isn’t reined in. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 11, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that six NATO service members, including three Americans, were killed in Afghanistan, making it the deadliest day for the international force in more than two months.



Summary: The writings of Jared Lee Loughner, would-be assassin of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, provide no evidence of a cognitively consistent set of political beliefs or even a coherent ideological orientation. However, his writings do reveal signs of thought disorder, pointing to the possibility of an undiagnosed mental illness of a psychotic nature. There is no direct evidence that Loughner thoughts or actions were specifically influenced by incendiary political rhetoric such as Sarah Palin’s “target list” or Michele Bachmann’s provocative “armed and dangerous” remarks or her paranoid conspiracies — for example, AmeriCorps youth brainwashing, “one-world currency,” or the U.S. census. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 10, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that CIA bomber Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, in a videotape released posthumously by the Pakistani Taliban, called on Muslim jihadists worldwide to avenge the death of former Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in an August 2009 U.S. missile strike, by attacking U.S. targets. Immelman also featured new details about the sequence of events in the Dec. 30, 2009 suicide bombing that killed seven CIA personnel and contractors at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan.


Jan 9th, 2011

Summary: A gunman identified as Jared Lee Loughner, 22, opened fire as Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) met with constituents outside a grocery store in Tucson, killing Arizona’s chief federal judge John M. Roll and five others, and leaving the lawmaker fighting for her life in an attempted assassination that had Americans questioning whether divisive politics had driven the attack. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 9, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that the Yemeni government, while ramping up the fight against al-Qaida with U.S. help, has also escalated its own internal conflicts with Shi’ite rebels in the north and Sunni secessionists in the south, threatening to throw the fractured country into greater chaos and nourish the growth of al-Qaida.



Summary: Addressing an adoring and frenzied crowd of thousands in his first speech after his triumphant return to Iraq after four years of self-imposed exile in Iran, radical Shi’ite fundamentalist Muqtada al-Sadr called the U.S., Israel, and Britain Iraq’s “common enemies,” saying “our aim is to expel the occupier by any means.” … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 8, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani falsely claimed that there were no terrorist attacks on U.S. soil under President George W. Bush.


Jan 7th, 2011

Summary: Weekly report of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, compiled from U.S. Department of Defense news releases and iCasualties.org. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 7, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that thousands of Afghans shouting “Death to America!” protested the killings of children, the latest in a string of controversial cases in which international forces have been blamed for civilian deaths.


Jan 6th, 2011

Summary: The United States is sending 1,400 more Marines to Afghanistan in an effort to hold on to fragile security gains in the nearly decade-long war. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 6, 2010, Aubrey Immelman provided his weekly report of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.


Jan 5th, 2011

Summary: The Obama administration has ramped up its secret war on terror groups with a new military targeting center to oversee the growing use of special operations strikes against suspected militants in hot spots around the world. The creation of the center comes as part of the administration’s increasing reliance on clandestine and covert action to hunt terror suspects. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 5, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Dr. Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, the 32-year-old Jordanian physician who struck the CIA’s Camp Chapman forward operating base in Khost province near the Afghan-Pakistan border on December 30, 2009 killing seven Central Intelligence Agency employees, matched the psychological profile of a specific type of suicide bomber.



Summary: A U.S. military commander in southern Helmand province reportedly told Afghanistan’s TOLOnews that the Afghan war is like a “Tom and Jerry” cartoon that never ends, the only difference being that the cartoon, unlike the war, does not claim actual lives. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 4, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that the suicide bombing on a CIA base in Afghanistan was carried out by a Jordanian doctor, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, who was an al-Qaida double agent.


Jan 3rd, 2011

Summary: The body of John Wheeler III, a military expert who served in three Republican administrations, was found dumped in a Delaware landfill on New Year’s Eve. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 3, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that White House aide John Brennan, President Barack Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, said U.S. intelligence agencies did not miss a “smoking gun” that could have prevented the attempt by radical Islamic fundamentalist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day.


Jan 2nd, 2011

Summary: Iran has shot down “a large number” of spy planes of Western forces, according to Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, a senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 2, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Yemen — the country where failed Christmas Day underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly received terrorist training — was becoming a focus for both the West and Islamic extremists.