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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Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Fast-Tracking M.O.P. - Is US Looking To Possible Iran Strikes?

By Steve Hynd


It's long been obvious that the Villagers expect negotiations with Iran to have one chance, and fail. Then, they expect stronger sanctions to fail too. And after that...well, it'll be back to "bomb,bomb,bomb Iran". American opinion is well primed for that eventuality.


And it looks like the Pentagon might be readying for it too. Jonathan Karl at ABC News reports:



the Pentagon is shifting spending from other programs to fast forward the development and procurement of the Massive Ordnance Penetrator. The Pentagon comptroller sent a request to shift the funds to the House and Senate Appropriations and Armed Services Committees over the summer.


The comptroller said the Pentagon planned to spend $19.1 million to procure four of the bombs, $28.3 million to accelerate the bomb's "development and testing", and $21 million to accelerate the integration of the bomb onto B-2 stealth bombers.


The notification was tucked inside a 93-page "reprogramming" request that included a couple hundred other more mundane items.


Why now? The notification says simply, "The Department has an Urgent Operational Need (UON) for the capability to strike hard and deeply buried targets in high threat environments. The MOP is the weapon of choice to meet the requirements of the UON." It further states that the request is endorsed by Pacific Command (which has responsibility over North Korea) and Central Command (which has responsibility over Iran).


This might just be part of a policy of strategic ambiguity the Obama administration has pursued, just as the previous administration did. Obama has toned down the saber-rattling greatly, but underlying administration rhetoric there is still a deliberate fostering of "will they - won't they" uncertainty about a possible attack on Iran. It's meant to make the Iranians more susceptable to pressure to do a diplomatic deal, but so far it seems to have had the opposite effect and only when deals have been offered in good faith have we had any progress. That's unsurprising to any of us who live in the real world, but utterly incomprehensible to the too-smart-by-half set of Very Serious People in D.C.



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