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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Thursday, June 5, 2008

Godfather Diplomacy

By Cernig



So, other than the usual cheerleaders, no-one believes Ambassador Crocker when he says the Bush administration isn't trying to keep Iraq as a permanent satrapy, a colony of American power. Given the administration's track record in truth-telling, that's not surprising.



But tomorrows Independent has Patrick Cockburn following up his article from today which leaked details of US demands on Iraqi sovereignty by leaking how the Bush administration intends strongarming Maliki et al into acceptance - Godfather style. (Hat tip - dday guesting at Political Animal):

The US is holding hostage some $50bn (�25bn) of Iraq's money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pressure the Iraqi government into signing an agreement seen by many Iraqis as prolonging the US occupation indefinitely, according to information leaked to The Independent.





US negotiators are using the existence of $20bn in outstanding court judgments against Iraq in the US, to pressure their Iraqi counterparts into accepting the terms of the military deal, details of which were reported for the first time in this newspaper yesterday.



Iraq's foreign reserves are currently protected by a presidential order giving them immunity from judicial attachment but the US side in the talks has suggested that if the UN mandate, under which the money is held, lapses and is not replaced by the new agreement, then Iraq's funds would lose this immunity. The cost to Iraq of this happening would be the immediate loss of $20bn.

Blackmail, then. As dday points out, this is pretty rich coming from a guy who vetoed a defense bill because it held provisions that he said might bankrupt Iraq with lawsuits.



Can someone in the MSM ask McCain if he's OK with this international racketeering?



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  1. Eric MartinJune 6, 2008 at 4:21 AM

    Someone made this point in the Political Animal thread, and I hadn't considered it until he mentioned it:
    It's more extortion than blackmail.

    ReplyDelete

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