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, August 10, 2009

At Least They Are Asking the Question

Commentary By Ron Beasley


Marc Lynch at Foreign Policy:



 I have an open mind on these questions, want the U.S. mission to succeed, and have a great deal of confidence in the Obama national security team.  I know that there have been a number of policy reviews at all levels of the government on Afghanistan strategy, and that most of the questions I can raise have already been discussed at one or the other.   But at the same time, I find the strategic rationale for escalating the war in Afghanistan extremely thin, and the mismatch between avowed aims and available resources frighteningly wide.  What are the strategic reasons for expanding the commitment in Afghanistan?  Why should the US be committing to a project of armed state building now, in 2009?   


Lee Hamilton: 



Strategically, there are two broad and fundamental questions to be answered. First, how will our departure impact our regional and security interests over the next decade and longer? And second, is this type of war really the best use of American power and resources in today's world?


Ok, we didn't get an answer from either one of these "wise men" but at least they are asking the question and that's a start.  And as Spencer Ackerman says the fact that Hamilton is asking the question is important:



Unfortunately, that�s the end of Hamilton�s op-ed, which, if anything, signifies that establishment foreign policy is starting to become comfortable throwing those questions out but isn�t yet comfortable offering answers. But still. Hamilton isn�t just any greybeard, he�s one President Obama respects and listens to, as one of Obama�s top foreign policy advisers, Ben Rhodes, worked for Hamilton for years. Hamilton endorsed Obama at a critical period in the primaries. Just before Obama�s inauguration, Hamilton hosted a dinner for him with a number of foreign-policy luminaries. Michael Cohen is right to see something changing.


 



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