Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Armitage Source For "Attack Iran" Rumors?

By Cernig



Thanks to regular reader John Shreffler for pointing out this gem from the Asia Times' Muhammad Cohen:

NEW YORK - The George W Bush administration plans to launch an air strike against Iran within the next two months, an informed source tells Asia Times Online, echoing other reports that have surfaced in the media in the United States recently.

Two key US senators briefed on the attack planned to go public with their opposition to the move, according to the source, but their projected New York Times op-ed piece has yet to appear.

The source, a retired US career diplomat and former assistant secretary of state still active in the foreign affairs community, speaking anonymously, said last week that that the US plans an air strike against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The air strike would target the headquarters of the IRGC's elite Quds force. With an estimated strength of up to 90,000 fighters, the Quds' stated mission is to spread Iran's revolution of 1979 throughout the region.

Targets could include IRGC garrisons in southern and southwestern Iran, near the border with Iraq.



...The source said the White House views the proposed air strike as a limited action to punish Iran for its involvement in Iraq. The source, an ambassador during the administration of president H W Bush, did not provide details on the types of weapons to be used in the attack, nor on the precise stage of planning at this time. It is not known whether the White House has already consulted with allies about the air strike, or if it plans to do so.



Details provided by the administration raised alarm bells on Capitol Hill, the source said. After receiving secret briefings on the planned air strike, Senator Diane Feinstein, Democrat of California, and Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, said they would write a New York Times op-ed piece "within days", the source said last week, to express their opposition. Feinstein is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Lugar is the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee.

Now, who could that source be but Richard L. Armitage - he of Plame-outing, Abu-Graibing, Data-mining, PNACing and Iran/Contra-ing fame? I wonder, does he have inside information he's leaking here or is he just shilling for the War Party again in trying to drum up a narrative for bombing Iran?



Update: Well, Senator Lugar has denied he ever was going to write an op-ed on this subject. And regular commenter Andy suggests another candidate for the "leak" - a guy by the name of Thomas R. Pickering.



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8 comments:

  1. Charlie H.May 27, 2008 at 7:55 AM

    Armitage isn't a "retired US career diplomat".
    Most of his career was spent in DOD.
    Everything else looks plausible, but odds are if he was doing the leaking about an Iran attack (part of an Info Op for sure), he would choose a more mainstream conduit than Muhammad Cohen or Asia Times.

    ReplyDelete
  2. CernigMay 27, 2008 at 9:04 AM

    Hi Charlie,
    Remember, this is only the latest report - there have been others saying the same thing over the past couple of weeks, beginning in Irsael. And Cohen used to be a US diplomat himself.
    Regards, C

    ReplyDelete
  3. Casual ObserverMay 28, 2008 at 1:48 AM

    Highly dubious story, imo, but easy enough to verify--ask Armitage, and the Senators in question.

    ReplyDelete
  4. CernigMay 28, 2008 at 5:35 AM

    Ask someone who was involved in Iran/Contra (and outing Plame) or two politicians whether somethings true...and believe them?
    That sounds extraordinarily naive to me.
    Regards, C

    ReplyDelete
  5. JohnShrefflerMay 28, 2008 at 6:58 AM

    C,
    Laura Rozen says that Sen. Lugar denied the op-ed end of this story. "Senator Lugar "wasn't briefed, there's no oped," says Andy Fischer, spokesman for the Indiana Republican who is vice chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee."

    ReplyDelete
  6. AndyMay 28, 2008 at 12:21 PM

    Not only was Armitage never a "career diplomat," he also never "retired" and he was never an assistant secretary of state (he was the deputy secretary). You might want to look at a guy named Pickering instead.

    ReplyDelete
  7. CernigMay 28, 2008 at 12:47 PM

    Hi Andy,
    I assume you mean Thomas R. Pickering.
    Hmmm...definitely possible. Do you have some insider info or is that just a good guess?
    Regards, C

    ReplyDelete
  8. AndyMay 28, 2008 at 2:21 PM

    No insider info, just deduction from the premise in the article. From what I've been able to dig up, Pickering is the only one who meets all the "tests" as given in the article. That he was both an ambassador under GHWB AND an assistant secretary at some other point in his career make the list of possibles pretty short.

    ReplyDelete

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