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: President Barack Obama is holding an uncertain hand in his high-stakes gamble in the fight against Islamic extremism in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Weak partners in both countries, doubts about the speed of building up Afghan security forces, and allies reluctant to commit themselves wholeheartedly to the battle all raise questions about the strategy. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 2, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that President George W. Bush said the biggest regret of his presidency was flawed intelligence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, telling ABC World News in an interview airing December 1, 2008 that he was unprepared for war when he took office.

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Summary: President Barack Obama’s address to the nation outlining his strategy on Afghanistan and Pakistan from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., December 1, 2009.

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Summary: Many soldiers and policy makers believe the conflict in Afghanistan may be harder and more intractable than the war in Iraq. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on November 28, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that al-Qaida’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had said in an Internet video that the U.S. financial crisis was caused by Washington’s military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan and that taxpayers were paying the price; and that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has emerged as a nationalist strongman after reaching a status-of-forces agreement with the Bush administration requiring U.S. forces to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011.

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Summary: A suicide bomber killed 16 people and wounded at least 23 others in a busy city square in western Afghanistan, while near the capital Kabul a powerful former warlord and ally of Afghan President Hamid Karzai narrowly escaped an assassination attempt. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on November 20, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, appearing on Fox News’ “Hannity & Colmes” on November 18, 2008, dismissed as an “urban legend” reports that she had said on an October 17, 2008 cable show with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that then-Sen. Barack Obama and other members of Congress “may have anti-American views” and that “the news media should do a penetrating exposé … and find out if they’re pro-America or anti-America.”

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Summary: Morale has fallen among soldiers in Afghanistan, while those in Iraq show much improved mental health amid much lower violence. … There were 133 reported active-duty Army suicides from January 2009 through October 2009, compared with 115 for the same period in 2008. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on November 13, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that an Iraqi soldier fired automatic weapons at U.S. soldiers at a military base in Mosul, killing two and wounding six before dying in a hail of bullets; bombers struck Baghdad for a third straight day, killing 23 people and wounding scores in a string of attacks in mostly Shiite areas; a suicide bomber driving an oil tanker detonated his explosives outside an Afghan government office in Kandahar, Afghanistan during a provincial council meeting, killing at least six people and wounding 42; Iran test-fired a solid-fuel, high-speed Sajjil long-range surface-to-surface missile with a range of about 1,200 miles; and North Korea announced it would shut the country’s border with the South on Dec. 1, 2008.

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Summary: A suicide bomber blew himself up in a market in northwest Pakistan, killing 12 people, including a mayor who had turned against the Taliban; two U.S. pilots have been killed in a helicopter crash in Iraq; Iraq’s parliament has passed a long-delayed law, setting the stage for nationwide elections in January 2010. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on November 8, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that Iraqi officials, who saw President-elect Obama’s views on the timing of a U.S. withdrawal as consonant with their own, appeared to be leveraging his election to pressure the Bush administration to make last-minute concessions in negotiations to reach a status-of-forces agreement with the United States; that Iraqi and U.S. officials were concerned about a surge in “sticky bombs”; and that Afghan president Hamid Karzai urged U.S. president-elect Barack Obama to stop the killing of civilians in coalition operations, which he said undermines popular support for the Afghan government and the international mission.

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Summary: Two U.S. soldiers transporting supplies in Afghanistan were swept away by a river in Badghis province while trying to save two boxes that had fallen into the water while being airdropped during a resupply mission and the Taliban said they were holding their bodies. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on Nov. 6, 2008, Aubrey Immelman noted that U.S. president-elect Barack Obama faced major foreign policy challenges and summarized intertwined issues Barack Obama inherited from George W. Bush.

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Summary: Taliban militants wearing suicide vests and armed with assault rifles and grenades attacked a residential hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing five U.N. staff members, including an American. … A car bomb coinciding with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s first official visit to Pakistan struck a busy market in Peshawar, killing 100 people, mostly women and children. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on the 10th day of his write-in campaign against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, Aubrey Immelman reported that the University of Minnesota newspaper, the Minnesota Daily, editorialized that in view of Bachmann’s assertion on “Hardball” with Chris Matthews that Barack Obama might have “anti-American views” and that the media should investigate which members of Congress also hold anti-American views, students should make campaign contributions to Bachmann’s Democratic opponent Elwyn Tinklenberg or to her Republican write-in challenger Aubrey Immelman.

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Summary: Helicopter crashes have killed 14 Americans in Afghanistan — 11 troops and three drug agents — in the deadliest day for the U.S. mission in Afghanistan in more than four years. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on the eighth day of his write-in campaign against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, Aubrey Immelman, in line with his focus on national security, reported that Iraq’s largest Sunni Arab political party suspended all dealings with U.S. civilian and military personnel after U.S. and Iraqi forces carried out a raid in which a senior official of Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi’s Iraqi Islamic Party was killed.

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