Current Events and the Psychology of Politics
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Summary: Former Secretary of State Colin Powell dismissed as “cheap shots” the criticism leveled at him and others in former Vice President Dick Cheney’s book, “In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir.” … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 29, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that the U.S., as it began to withdraw from Iraq, was leaving behind hundreds of abandoned or incomplete projects. More than $5 billion in American taxpayer funds had been wasted — more than 10 percent of the approximately $50 billion the U.S. spent on reconstruction in Iraq, according to audits by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.


Feb 15th, 2011

Summary: Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, an Iraqi defector who fled Iraq in 1995 and went by the codename “Curveball,” has publicly admitted for the first time that he made up stories about mobile bioweapons trucks and secret factories to try to bring down Saddam Hussein’s regime. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 15, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that the incendiary rhetoric of demagogues like Glenn Beck or Michele Bachmann is powerful because it slips through the cracks in our acculturated human rationality, with its biological substrates in the fontal cortex, to hit a lower nerve in the subcortical brain regions of the limbic system, the seat of emotion.


Nov 25th, 2009

Summary: Analysis of President Barack Obama’s political personality, leadership style, and decision-making on Afghanistan. … The Taliban’s reclusive leader, Mullah Omar, has ruled out talks with President Hamid Karzai and called on Afghans to break off relations with the “stooge” Kabul administration and continue the jihad, implying there will be no negotiations while foreign troops are in the country. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on November 25, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that KBR, a contractor providing services to the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan, had committed serious violations of its contract, mainly by conducting inadequate inspections of electrical wiring and grounding at American bases. The Pentagon findings stemmed from the death of Sgt. Ryan Maseth, a highly decorated 24-year-old Green Beret from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who was electrocuted on January 2, 2008 while taking a shower at his base in Baghdad.


Sep 23rd, 2009

Summary: Former U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), Distinguished Professor in the Practice of National Governance at Georgetown University, will deliver the Third Annual Eugene McCarthy Lecture on Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at 7:30 p.m. in the Stephen B. Humphrey Theater on the campus of St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minn. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on the 14th 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 security incidents and U.S. military deaths in Iraq, a bombing in Afghanistan, and violence in Pakistan.


Sep 3rd, 2009

Summary: On the same day that Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Obama administration’s effort in the eight-year-old Afghanistan war is “only now beginning,” former U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) — a potential successor to Secretary Gates — published an op-ed article in the Washington Post in which he cautions, “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.” … One year ago today, on the 51st day of his campaign against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann for the Republican nomination as House of Representatives candidate in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, Aubrey Immelman released a video statement regarding the serious national security implications of the Iraq war, which Rep. Bachmann failed to address the previous evening in her speech at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.


Jul 29th, 2009

Summary: Former U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), Distinguished Professor in the Practice of National Governance at Georgetown University, will deliver the Third Annual Eugene McCarthy Lecture on Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minn. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on the 15th day of his campaign against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann for the Republican nomination as House of Representatives candidate in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, Aubrey Immelman reported on an op-ed article dealing with energy prices that he had written for the St. Cloud Times the previous day; met with Stearns County Sheriff John Sanner and Emergency Manager Marvin Klug; announced the release of a new web video in which he discusses his core campaign issues; and challenged unendorsed Independence Party candidate Bob Anderson’s justification for the Iraq war.


Jul 9th, 2009

Summary: Declassified notes of FBI interviews with Saddam Hussein in 2004 show Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction at the time of the U.S. invasion in 2003, but that Saddam falsely allowed the world to believe Iraq had WMD because he feared revealing his weakness to Iran, the hostile neighbor he considered a bigger threat than the U.S.


Jun 3rd, 2009

Summary: Al-Qaida’s deputy leader on June 2, 2009 criticized President Barack Obama’s upcoming speech to the Islamic world in Cairo, saying it would not change the “bloody messages” the U.S. military is sending Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. Al-Qaida has repeatedly lashed out at Obama since he was elected, a move some analysts believe indicates the terrorist organization is worried he will be effective in improving the U.S. image in the Muslim world.


May 11th, 2009

Summary: Former vice president Dick Cheney has made it clear he’d rather follow incendiary broadcaster Rush Limbaugh than former Joint Chiefs chairman Colin Powell into political battle over the future of the Republican Party.



Summary: A federal draft report depicts the U.S.-led reconstruction of Iraq as a $100 billion failure doomed by bureaucratic infighting, ignorance of basic elements of Iraqi society, and waves of violence. The report, “Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience,” was compiled by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, led by Stuart Bowen Jr., a Republican lawyer.