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, September 14, 2009

Vietnam -Afghanistan, LBJ - Obama

Commentary By Ron Beasley



Lindsey Graham, Joe Lieberman and John McCain have an editorial in the WSJ where they continue to  beat the drums of war but as Steve suggested below not everyone believes the effort can be successful and that there may be a change in the AF/PAK strategy.

Petraeus and McChrystal still want more troops for nation-building in
Afghanistan, but there are signs that the Very Serious People are about
to change horses midstream again and advocate an Iraq-style papering
over the cracks before declaring victory and rushing for the exits. It
has become obvious that neither the public nor many Democratic lawmakers
support escalation of the eight year occupation, with only the neocons
seriously supporting doubling down on an American decades-long
presence. So the new plan is to instead concentrate on a rapid increase
of Afghan security forces - both police and army - followed by
withdrawal.





Now as Steve points out this "papering over the cracks strategy" is unacceptable for many reasons.  It is an admission that we can't be successful .  Now we can't know what's being said in the oval office today but we do know what was being said there almost 45 years ago.  The following are from the Johnson tapes as found in Reaching For Glory by Michael Beschloss.



Now we're off to bombing these people. We're over that hurdle. I don't think
anything is going to be as bad as losing, and I don't see any way of winning.



~LBJ to ROBERT MCNAMARA, February 26, 1965





.............


It's going to be difficult/or us to... prosecute ...a war that far away from
home with the divisions we have here. ...I'm very depressed about it. Be-
cause I see no program from either Defense or State that gives me much
hope of doing anything, except just praying and gasping to hold on ...and
hope they'll quit. I don't believe they're ever going to quit. And I don't see
.. . any .. . plan for a victory�militarily or diplomatically.



~LBJ to ROBERT MCNAMARA, June 21, 1965





............


We know ourselves, in our own conscience, that when we asked for this
[Gulf of Tonkin] resolution, we had no intention of committing this many
ground troops. We're doing so now, and we know it's going to be bad. And
the question is, Do we just want to do it out on a limb by ourselves? I don't
know whether those [Pentagon] men have ever [calculated] whether we
can win with the kind of training we have, the kind of power, and...
whether we can have a united support at home.



~LBJ to ROBERT MCNAMARA, July 2,1965





Now they already know the war in Vietnam can't be won but notice the date when you look at the chart bellow.



Vietnam Deaths You will note that over 55,000 Americans died in Vietnam after the above conversations - some of them friends and relatives of mine.  Why did this happen?  I explained in the comments of Steve's post.

But we can't simply pack up and leave because that would be a political
disaster. So thousands will die and trillions of dollars in treasure
will be squandered so they won't lose face and power.





That's right, 55,000 Americans died because of politics.



Like LBJ before him Obama has boxed himself into a no win corner.



Don't let this happen again!





Update



Great video by commenter dcrowe.







Update II



Related Post: Yet Another Vietnam-Afghanistan Analogy



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4 comments:

  1. dcroweSeptember 14, 2009 at 5:13 AM

    I made an LBJ/Obama video a few days ago you might enjoy.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcjSvBz9vR4
    Great post.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ron BeasleySeptember 14, 2009 at 5:33 AM

    Thanks dcrowe
    Put your video in the post.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Bernard FinelSeptember 14, 2009 at 3:34 PM

    My mood is bipolar on this. Sometimes, it seems like there is so much momentum on our side -- George Will! Feinstein just came out with doubts. Levin.... It seems like reason is just about to break out.
    Then, on the other hand, I just can't see how Obama reverses course so soon, and if doesn't do it soon, he can't do it in an election year. So, maybe, if we're lucky 2011 before any serious reversal of the escalation occurs?
    And in the meantime, we're held hostage to development in Afghanistan because as hard as it is to set a timeline for withdrawal now, it'll be even harder if the insurgency continues to gain ground.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ron BeasleySeptember 15, 2009 at 7:39 AM

    I agree Bernard, Obama's hand will have to be forced and it may be by congress looking at public opinion. Another drop in support in the newest CNN poll and this time most of the drop was from conservatives.

    ReplyDelete

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