Summary: Osama bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of U.S. troops in the mountains of Tora Bora when American military leaders made the crucial and costly decision in December 2001 not to pursue the terrorist leader with massive force, according to a Senate Foreign Relations Committee report that affixes a measure of blame for the state of the Afghanistan war today on military leaders under former president George W. Bush, specifically Donald H. Rumsfeld as defense secretary and his top military commander, Gen. Tommy Franks. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on November 29, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that a rocket attack on a U.N. compound in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone killed two foreigners and wounded 15, while a suicide bomber struck Shiite worshippers at a mosque run by followers of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, killing at least 12 people, a day after Iraqi lawmakers approved a status-of-forces agreement with the Bush administration setting a timeline for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

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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: Of the 364 Iraqis killed in October, 155 died in two nearly simultaneous bombs targeting government buildings on Oct. 25, 2009 in downtown Baghdad — the worst attack in more than two years. … More Taliban bombings in retaliation as Pakistan continues its offensive in South Waziristan, a tribal region adjoining Afghanistan, where al-Qaida terrorists are believed to have hideouts. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on the 15th day of his write-in campaign against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, Aubrey Immelman, in his capacity as research director of the Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics, published two articles in the St. Cloud Times in which he provides an analysis of his primary concerns regarding the personality-based limitations of prospective Obama and McCain presidencies.

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Summary: On her first official visit to Pakistan, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton faced sharp rebukes from Pakistani audiences brimming with resentment toward U.S. foreign policy, including one woman who accused the U.S. of conducting “executions without trial” in aerial drone strikes, equating it to terrorism. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on the 12th day of his write-in campaign against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, in line with his focus on national security, Aubrey Immelman reported a suicide bombing attack on the Afghan Ministry of Information and Culture targeting foreign advisers in Kabul, the downing of a U.S. helicopter in central Afghanistan, the killing of two U.S. soldiers in northern Afghanistan by a suicide bomber wearing a police uniform, and ongoing violence in Iraq.

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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: “The enemy has started a guerrilla war,” Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said after teams of gunmen launched coordinated attacks on three law enforcement facilities in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore and car bombs hit two other cities, killing 39 people in an escalating wave of anti-government violence. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on the 36th day after losing his 2008 primary challenge against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, Aubrey Immelman reported that the Afghan insurgency had spread beyond traditional Taliban strongholds, with the number of attacks in the country at a six-year high, and recommended Peter Galbraith’s book “Unintended Consequences: How War in Iraq Strengthened America’s Enemies.”

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Summary: Speaking at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh on a day the Pentagon announced five more American deaths in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama said he understands that Americans are tiring of the war in Afghanistan and that he is examining whether the U.S. is pursuing the right strategy there. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on the 16th day after losing his 2008 primary challenge against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, Aubrey Immelman, in line with his focus on national security, reported on a speech at the United Nations by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in which he decried civilian casualties in his country from foreign bombing raids, telling world leaders that innocent deaths can seriously hurt legitimate efforts to fight terrorism. Immelman also reported on continuing violence in Iraq and threats by militants in Pakistan to escalate the violence in that country if Pakistan did not cease cooperating with the United States.

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Summary: About 150 militants armed with rockets and automatic weapons attacked a transport terminal in northwestern Pakistan along a key supply route used by U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.

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Summary: The economic crisis has trumped bullets and bombs in the intelligence agencies’ latest assessment of threats to the United States. Sounding more like an economist than the war-fighting Navy commander he once was, National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair told a Senate panel that if the economic crisis lasts more than two years, it could cause some nations’ governments to collapse. “The longer it takes for the recovery to begin, the greater the likelihood of serious damage to U.S. strategic interests,” he told the Senate Intelligence Committee, as Congress prepares to vote on a $789 billion stimulus package.

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Summary: The message from Washington to Pakistan is clear: There is no change in U.S. policy when it comes to going after al-Qaida and Taliban targets in Pakistan’s lawless border areas. After all, Barack Obama warned during his presidential campaign that America must go after terrorist targets if Pakistan did not act first.

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