Summary: In Afghanistan, the five-member “Red team” is rethinking the war in Afghanistan and questioning some of the basic assumptions behind the effort to clean up corruption and gain the upper hand over the Taliban. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on September 25, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that President Barack Obama, speaking at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh on a day the Pentagon announced five more American deaths in Afghanistan, said he understood that Americans were tiring of the war in Afghanistan and that he was examining whether the U.S. was pursuing the right strategy there.

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Summary: Gen. Colin Powell discusses foreign policy regarding Afghanistan with David Gregory on NBC Meet the Press. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on September 20, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party released a statement that characterized Gov. Tim Pawlenty as “moving closer and closer to Representative Michele Bachmann’s extreme right-wing ideology.”

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Summary: Amid Taliban rocket strikes and bombings, Afghans voted for a new parliament, the first election since a fraud-marred presidential ballot in 2009 cast doubt on the legitimacy of the embattled government. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on September 18, 2009, Aubrey Immelman featured a Politico report that elements within the GOP were concerned that the “bomb-throwing” Rep. Michele Bachmann might be inflicting damage on the party’s reputation with her incessant incendiary rhetoric.

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Summary: Two protesters died and four were injured as Afghans protested for a third day against a plan by Florida pastor Terry Jones to burn copies of the Islamic holy book, the Quran. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on September 13, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that Rep. Michele Bachmann held a town hall meeting in St. Cloud to talk about President Obama’s health care reform proposals, after which she headlined an anti-Obama tea party.

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Summary: The number of foreign troops killed in Afghanistan this year has reached at least 500, compared with 521 in all of 2009, according to the independent monitoring site icasualties.org and a tally compiled by Reuters. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on September 6, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that opinion polls showed support for President Barack Obama and his policies dipping sharply, though he remained personally more popular than his policies. How will those dynamics impact the 2010 election and what do they tell us about President Obama’s personal qualities and leadership style?

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Summary: Iran is paying Taliban fighters $1,000 for each U.S. soldier they kill in Afghanistan, according to a report by Miles Amoore in the London Sunday Times. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on September 5, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that a NATO fact-finding team estimated that about 125 people, many of them civilians, had been killed in a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan guided by a lone informant.

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Summary: The death toll from a Pakistani Taliban suicide attack on a Shiite Muslim procession rose to 65 as critically wounded people died in hospitals, while a suspected U.S. missile strike killed seven insurgents. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on September 4, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that the Associated Press’ publication of a photo of dying Marine Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard had prompted controversy, with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and John Bernard, father of Lance Cpl. Bernard, weighing in.

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Summary: U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, on a visit to Camp Nathan Smith, headquarters for U.S. operations in Kandahar, Afghanistan, told troops of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, that the likelihood of direct U.S. military engagement in Pakistan is very low but that “unfortunately, there are going to be more tough days ahead” in Afghanistan. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on September 3, 2009, on the same day that Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Obama administration’s effort in the eight-year-old Afghanistan war was “only now beginning,” Aubrey Immelman reported that former U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) — my choice for successor to Secretary Gates — published an op-ed article in the Washington Post in which he cautioned, “No country today has the power to impose its will and values on other nations. … Bogging down large armies in historically complex, dangerous areas ends in disaster.”

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Summary: About $155 million in deposits have been withdrawn from Afghanistan’s largest bank in just the last two days, spurring fresh concerns among U.S. and Afghan officials that a financial panic could spread through the country and derail the U.S. war effort. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on September 2, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, in a fiery speech at an Independence Institute fundraiser in Denver that at times sounded more like the plot of a slasher movie, railed against the dangers of health care reform and other Democratic initiatives, warning the proposals “have the strength to destroy this country forever” and calling on her audience to “make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing.”

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Summary: In Afghanistan, a spike in bloodshed has claimed the lives of 19 U.S. service members in just four days, elevating the U.S. death toll for August to 55, with 76 fatalities in total for NATO forces. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on September 1, 2009, Aubrey Immelman provided his weekly report of U.S. military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan and reported that with 52 U.S. troops killed, August 2009 became the deadliest month of the deadliest year yet in the Afghanistan war; that the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan called for a new strategy against the Taliban in an assessment of the 8-year-old conflict ordered by the U.S. Secretary of Defense; and that the number of civilians killed in Iraq shot up to 393 in August 2009, the highest level since April 2009, after a spate of mass-casualty bombings caused carnage in Baghdad and northern Iraq.

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