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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Sunday, June 28, 2009

Mil Spec: NATO

by anderson

At first, I thought it was a joke.

Reading Rick Rozcoff's latest tour de force investigation of the recent activities of NATO and the US military in their expansionist agenda, a phrase jumped off the page during the discussion of NATO's Joint Warrior war games, held in May of this year:

Regarding American participation in last month's drills, "USS Arleigh Burke (DDG 51), USS Porter (DDG 78), USS Philippine Sea (CG 58), USNS Kanawha (T-AO 193), and COMDESRON 24 took part in the scenario-driven engagement, along with vessels from nine other members of the North American Treaty Organization (NATO). [The Joint warrior] exercise [is] expected to increase fleet efficiency and battle readiness for U.S. and allied navies alike."

Was Roscoff just slipping in a little dig? Is there another NATO I don't know about? Doubtful.  At least, I sure as hell hope it's doubtful.  Because that quote comes from the US military's own Navy Newsstand, directly referencing the NATO war games in the North Atlantic.

I guess that gives us a little Freudian glimpse into the how the US military views the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which otherwise comprises flimsy Eurotwerps and former commies we don't much trust.

Grid Expansion

Rozcoff lays down the palette of aggressive military exercises, the push into Finland and Sweden (pissing off locals, of course),  missile installation plans, carrier battle group war games.  A Patriot missile system is due to start installation in Poland this year, outside of any missile defense parameters because, by the gentle words of President Obama, Poland and NATO should not "neglect potential security threats closer to home in Europe and..." And, indeed.

Outside of now being a target, the local Polish population will be in for a further treat. Beaming, Deputy Defense Minister Stanislaw Komorowski informed his audience that, "[t]his will be the first time US soldiers are stationed on Polish soil."

Left unsaid in Komorowski's prideful moment is the fact that the US station was last used during the Nazi occupation of Poland.

Why do they do this? Abu Graib? Hey, the place that bastard Hussein used to torture prisoners?  Yeah, let's use that to torture prisoners.  US soldiers stationed in a Luftwaffe airbase? Hey, that Luftwaffe airbase those bastard Nazis used for their occupation of Poland?  Yeah, let's use that for ....  Apropos the Pentagon would employ an efficient reuse policy for the tragically unnecessary.

For all the money the Pentagon spends on PR, you'd think they'd get something like this right. On the other hand, maybe they just don't give a shit.  With economic distress hitting hard everywhere, one source of capital for floundering, ally economies that isn't drying up is the Defense Department's budget.  They're striking while the iron is hot and before the SCO starts to unwind from the US dollar.

I highly recommend Rick's work.  Extremely thorough research in a strong critique of US foreign policy.



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