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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Monday, June 2, 2008

Some Good Advice

By Ron Beasley



We all know that the so called fact finding trips to Iraq by politicians are little more than taxpayer funded photo ops at a dog and pony show.  That said it appears that Barack Obama may be forced to make such a trip to shut up John McCain.  Juan Cole has some excellent advise on how to turn it into a real fact finding mission and at the same time make it backfire on McCain and the neocons.

See if a meeting can be set up with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Sistani has enormous moral authority in Iraq and is known for his support for national unity. No one could slam Obama for meeting with the Grand Ayatollah. Paul Bremer corresponded with him. He is not a radical and is well respected by the US military. And, when Obama comes to debate McCain, the Grand Ayatollah would give him a trump card. "Senator McCain speaks of having US bases in Iraq for a hundred years. Grand Ayatollah Sistani and other key Iraqi leaders told me to my face that any such plans are completely unacceptable to them. How likely is it that the McCain fatwa can be more popular or legitimate in Iraq than the Sistani fatwa?"

Sistani doesn't meet many foreigners. But he has met UN special envoys and a wide range of politicians. It isn't beyond the realm of possibility that he would meet Obama. Providing security in Najaf could be done. US Ambassador Ryan Crocker was in Najaf recently. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim could set it up and help guarantee it.

He also recommends a trip to Jordan to meet with the half million Iraqi refugees in that country which would bring some visibility to that aspect of the occupation and civil war.



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2 comments:

  1. KlausJune 2, 2008 at 2:01 PM

    What Obama should do (that phrase again) is do that political jiu-jitsu at which he excels, and take a trip to Afghanistan instead, putting a big fat line under his commitment to OEF while tying McCain to Iraq.

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  2. RudiJune 3, 2008 at 9:07 AM

    But if he does this Billy Kristol will call him names in a NYT's op-ed. Besides, the truth from Sistani isn't like a walk through at the carpet bazaar.

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