Current Events and the Psychology of Politics
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Apr 9th, 2010

Summary: The White House is warning that al-Qaida is quietly hunting for an atomic bomb, adding urgency to a historic summit next week where President Barack Obama will try to persuade world leaders to step up efforts to keep nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 9, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that PolitiFact debunked Rep. Michele Bachmann’s claim, in an April 7, 2009 op-ed in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, that President Barack Obama’s cap and trade proposal would cost every household in America more than $3,000 in energy costs a year. (Still, I don’t believe it’s good policy, but it’s wrong to go and lie about it.)


Mar 4th, 2010

Summary: The suicide bomber behind the Dec. 30, 2009 attack on CIA Forward Operating Base Chapman in eastern Afghanistan, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, claims in a posthumously released recording that he lured U.S. and Jordanian intelligence officers into a trap by sending them misleading information about terrorist targets as well as videotapes he made of senior al-Qaeda leaders. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on March 4, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that two days after calling conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh a mere “entertainer” with an “incendiary” talk show, Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele apologized and acknowledged Limbaugh as a “national conservative leader” in a spat that raised questions about the leadership of the GOP.


Jan 26th, 2010

Summary: A new report warns that al-Qaida has not abandoned its goal of attacking the United States with a chemical, biological, or even a nuclear weapon. … Al-Qaida’s high-value target list. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 26, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that counterterrorism officials and the FBI were investigating whether al-Shabab or other Somali Islamic groups were actively recruiting in the United States. Officials said as many as 20 Somali-Americans between the ages of 17 and 27 had left their Minneapolis homes since 2007, apparently bound for Somalia.


Jan 12th, 2010

Summary: Thousands of Somali boys and teenagers fleeing war and chaos at home are sailing to Yemen, where officials worry that the new arrivals could become the next generation of al-Qaida fighters. U.S. and Yemeni authorities also fear that Islamist fighters from Somalia could slip into the country among the throngs of refugees, deepening ties between al-Qaeda leaders in Yemen and the particularly hard-line al-Shabab militants of Somalia. … Massoud Ali Mohammadi, a nuclear physics professor who publicly backed Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi in the disputed June 2009 presidential election, was killed when a bomb-rigged motorcycle blew up outside his home in Tehran. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 12, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that security forces used tear gas and batons to repel anti-Israel protesters who tried to attack a U.S. consulate in Pakistan as tens of thousands of people demonstrated worldwide against Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip. He also reported that seven years after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan routed the Taliban regime, hard-line Islamic fighters who had scattered under massive bombardment to their villages and rear bases in Pakistan once again govern large swaths of Afghanistan and are dug in across regions that surround the capital Kabul, saying they welcome the U.S. military’s proposal to send as many as 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan by summer 2009 because it will give them more chances to kill “infidels.”


Jan 10th, 2010

Summary: 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. … 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 last August in a U.S. missile strike, by attacking U.S. targets. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 10, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that President-elect Barack Obama, in announcing his nomination of Leon Panetta as CIA director and Adm. Dennis Blair as national intelligence director, said his administration would not compromise its ideals to fight terrorism and that he had instructed his nominees to honor the Geneva Conventions.


Jan 5th, 2010

Summary: Intelligence lapse: Dr. Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, the 32-year-old Jordanian physician who turned against his Jordanian intelligence recruiters and struck the CIA’s Camp Chapman forward base in Khost province near the Afghan-Pakistan frontier on December 30, 2009 killing seven Central Intelligence Agency employees and his Jordanian recruiter, matched the psychological profile of a suicide bomber. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 5, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that Vice President Dick Cheney, in an exit interview on CBS “Face the Nation,” defended the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, of which he was a key proponent and architect.


Jan 4th, 2010

Summary: 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. Personality profile of al-Qaida No. 2, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 4, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that a female suicide bomber, in what has become an emerging pattern in Iraq — the mujahidaat — killed at least 38 and wounded 72 in an attack on pilgrims at the Imam Moussa al-Kadhim shrine in Kadhimiya, Iraq.



Summary: U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan doubled in 2009 compared with a year ago. A tally by The Associated Press shows 304 American service members had died as of Dec. 30, up from 151 in 2008. In contrast, U.S. deaths in Iraq dropped by half as troops largely remained on bases and the United States prepares to withdraw from that country by the end of 2011. There, 152 U.S. service members died, down from 314 a year earlier. … The Pakistani Taliban claims they used a turncoat CIA operative to carry out a suicide bombing that killed seven American CIA employees in Afghanistan as revenge for the death of former Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud in a U.S. missile strike in August 2009. … A suicide bomber blew himself up in an SUV at an outdoor volleyball tournament in northwest Pakistan, killing 88 people in a village that opposes Taliban insurgents. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 1, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that U.S. military deaths in Iraq plummeted by two-thirds in 2008 from the previous year, while the war in Afghanistan saw American military deaths rise by 35 percent in 2008 as Islamic extremists shifted their focus to a new front with the West. The combined total of at least 465 U.S. deaths in both Iraq and Afghanistan for 2008 was the lowest combined total for both wars since 2003, when the U.S. invaded Iraq.


Dec 10th, 2009

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.


Nov 28th, 2009

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.