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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Sunday, April 18, 2010

77 Percent of Brits want an Afghan withdrawal

By Steve Hynd


From the Telegraph:



While the conflict has been a running political theme for the last five years, it has barely been mentioned as an issue during the first two weeks of the general election campaign.


An opinion poll yesterday showed that more than three-quarters of voters support the withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan.


The Com Res poll found that 77 per cent wanted troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan, while more than half thought that the presence of troops there put British streets at greater risk from terrorism.


Meanwhile, the three main parties have been squabbling over whether Brown's government provided enough equipment to British troops involved in this mis-conceived occupation. Has there ever been a clearer example of democracy NOT working in the UK?


Still, the Torygraph hints that Nick Clegg might be about to stir up the anthill.



Last summer, during the bloodiest period of the conflict when seven British soldiers lost their lives in seven days during Operation Panther�s Claw, Mr Clegg became the first party leader to break the consensus on the mission in Afghanistan.


He warned that young lives were being �thrown away,� and, while he said that the Liberal Democrats still supported British involvement in the conflict, he urged the Government to think again about the tactics �before it�s too late.�


The party�s manifesto says that Liberal Democrats are �critical supporters� of the Afghanistan campaign.


Clegg should listen to the people and turn his party into critical NON-supporters of the Afghan occupation.



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