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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Thursday, November 5, 2009

Isolate and Concentrate, UN edition

By Dave Anderson:



Isolate and concentrate.



This is the goal of both the insurgent force and the counterinsurgent force as both seek to force their opponents to stand alone and tightly packed. The difference is the counterinsurgent force wants to physically isolate large groups of insurgents so that the full conventional military superiority of the state can be brought to bear against the more lightly armed and supported insurgent force. The Sri Lankan final offensive against the Tamil Tigers is the plus ne ultra of this desire where routine heavy artillery barrages backing heavy conventional infantry forces were able to fight a set piece battle. The insurgent force(s) want to morally and financially isolate and concentrate their opponents so that there is no cost sharing, no burden sharing and a completely corrupted OODA loop.



The Taliban(s) in Afghanistan have scored a victory in their quest to isolate both the Karzai government and concentrate costs on the United States. The raid on the United Nations election staff housing had disproportional impact as the UN is withdrawing half their international staff as reported by CNN:



The United Nations said Thursday it would pull about 600 staff members out of Afghanistan in the wake of a militant attack that killed five staff members and wounded nine.




The UN is attempting to beef up their security bubble and may reintroduce staff in the future but their effectiveness will decrease as the security bubble will not allow them to travel to some areas and will slow all activities down.

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