Summary: Lt. Col. Thomas B. Gukeisen, who commands 600 soldiers at Forward Operating Base Altimur in Logar province, Afghanistan, has achieved success operating by his own innovative ideas about counterinsurgency warfare. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 20, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that Iraq’s parliament had voted to reject a draft law allowing troops from Britain, Australia, and several other countries to remain in Iraq beyond the end of 2008.

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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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