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.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Dumbest Drone Strike Ever

By Steve Hynd


Associated Press reports that the U.S. has conducted yet another drone attack in Pakistan, and U.S. officials believe they've killed two Al Qaeda members.


There's a bit of a snag though - the strike was inside territory claimed by anti-U.S. militant leader Hafiz Gul Bahadur's territory in North Waziristan. The Pakistani military have recently completed peace deals with Bahadur and his likewise anti-US neighbour Mullah Maulvi Nazir to secure their rear areas from attack while they are engaged in assaulting Mehsud's TTP in South Waziristan. As part of that deal, Pakistan promised both militant leaders there would be no more U.S. drone attacks in their territories. This is the first drone strike in Pakistan since the deal was reportedly finalized on October 2.


And the strike is reported to have also killed two little girls.


This has got to be the dumbest move the U.S. could make right now. When I first saw accounts of the Pakistani peace deals I wondered whether the U.S. had signed on to the terms. Whether the Pakistanis were just BSing or not, though, the deals are now broken and the Pakistani government is revealed as a liar. If Bahadur decides he won't keep his end either, his people will begin to attack rear areas and supplies, seriously hampering an assault that the U.S. has approved and described as essential. There's no way that was worth getting two AQ leaders right now, even if one was Bin Laden. There would be other chances, after Pakistan has finished its military operation in South Waziristan. The prospect of Pakistan suffering a massive defeat in the region is surely far more worrisome to U.S. planners, or should be. Did someone not get the memo, maybe?


Update: Long War Journal, in a post about the apparent mistaken identity of one of those killed by the strike, notes that the Pakistani government are trying to scratch over any talk of a breach of the deal they have with their anti-US Taliban-affiliated allies by claiming that the explosions were due to some explosives mishap inside the house. Somehow I doubt their allies will be convinced.


*Sorry for linking AP but I couldn't find another agency reporting this story as yet - S



Posted by at
Labels: , , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)