Newshoggers Archive: McChrystal Tells Afghans No Early US Exit

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, December 3, 2009

McChrystal Tells Afghans No Early US Exit

By Steve Hynd

General Stan McChrystal is signalling to the Afghan leadership that Obama's 2011 "beginning of the end" is just a number they shouldn't take seriously.

The top US military commander in Afghanistan has met senior politicians there as part of a charm offensive to sell Barack Obama�s new strategy.
General Stanley McChrystal hopes to reassure wary Afghans that the country won�t be abandoned and that Washington�s commitment is long-term. �By this time next year, one year from now, I believe I will be able to tell you that the strategy is clearly working, and will be successful,� said McChrystal, who commands US and NATO forces in the country. He said the focus was on helping the Afghan people build enough capacity to provide security themselves. Afghan Member of Parliament Daud Sultanzoi seemed encouraged. �This is a long term partnership that Afghanistan and the international community and the United States will enjoy until everything is resolved and until Afghanistan enjoys its desired stability,� he said.

If the U.S. is going to be there "until Afghanistan enjoys its desired stability" then it's going to be there a very long time indeed.

But McChrystal is only following his own bosses. Gates and Mullen have already added a Friedman Unit to Obama's July 2011 date and added another 3,000 troops to the number Obama announced. Afghanistan may not be Vietnam - but the political manouverings of escalation still look very much the same.

Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

McChrystal Tells Afghans No Early US Exit

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