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, June 3, 2010

Bush: 'No regrets about torturing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed'

by Jay McDonough



There still must be some that cares what he thinks.

Former President George W. Bush said Wednesday that he has no regrets about waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, saying that, if presented with the same opportunity, he�d �do it again.� 



Bush made the comments in reference to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks who was waterboarded after his capture, during a speech to the Economics Club of Grand Rapids in Michigan. The remarks were first reported by the Grand Rapids Press. 



�Yeah, we waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,� Bush said. �I'd do it again to save lives.�  (Link)



Maybe a review of what's in the public record is in order:

  -  Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times.  Perhaps Mr. Bush could explain why it would take 183 times if the method is effective.

  -  KSM admitted he lied to U.S. interrogators when torture was used.

  -  CIA internal memos contradict Bush and Cheney's account of the effectiveness of the KSM interrogations.

  -  The CIA's Inspector General report does not support torture's value as an reliable interrogation tool.

  -  FBI agents protested the use of torture and were ordered by their superiors to not cooperate with any interrogation where torture was employed.

  -  Torture (yes, that includes waterboarding) violates international treaties and domestic and international law. 

Perhaps former President Bush is so glib because he knows that he's safe from prosecution here in the U.S. and will never be held accountable.  Being given a pass makes him no more credible and no less guilty.



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