Summary: President Barack Obama’s foreign policy appears to be working in one area vital to U.S. national security: Pakistan. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on March 20, 2009, Aubrey Immelman examined what might have happened if companies deemed “too big to fail” had been allowed to do just that.

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Summary: In the fourth major terrorist attack in Pakistan this week, a pair of suicide bombers targeting army vehicles detonated explosives within seconds of each other, killing at least 43 people in the eastern city of Lahore and wounding about 100. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on March 12, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that the FBI was investigating whether young Somali men were being radicalized in Minnesota and recruited to fight with terrorist groups such as al-Shabab in Somalia.

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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: 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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Summary: Iraqis vote Jan. 31, 2009 in the first nationwide election in three years, choosing provincial leaders in what amounts to a test of Iraq’s stability as the U.S. plans to remove its troops. A credible election without significant violence would show that the security improvements of the past 18 months are taking hold. The outcome will also show which parties stand the best chance of success in parliamentary elections a year later.

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Summary: A U.S. Army probe into suicides among Houston-based recruiters, all veterans of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, said medical problems factored in the deaths but none had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Four members of the Houston Recruiting Battalion took their lives between January 2005 and September 2008.

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Summary: 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 stop cooperating with the United States.

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Summary: On the 15th 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 the downing of a U.S. drone amid strains between the United States and Pakistan over cross-border incursions; the attempted assassination of the Kabul police’s head of criminal investigations in Afghanistan; and security incidents and U.S. casualties in Iraq.

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Summary: On the 13th 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 tensions between Pakistan and the United States stemming from U.S. cross-border raids from neighboring Afghanistan; bombings and kidnappings in Afghanistan and Pakistan; and ongoing violence in Iraq.

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