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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Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Embrace the disconnect

By Dave Anderson:



COIN is supposed to be practiced by warrior-scholars who speak the local languages, understand the local cultures and can delicately, discretely and effectively walk an effective line of providing good governance while occasionally shooting at unpopular bad guys. Those warrior-scholars are supposed to be backed up by a massive array of effective technocrats who can connect the locals to the outside world in a culturally competent manner.  



That is how it is supposed to work. But we practice COIN with the army and the civilian diplomatic corps that we have.  



Cunning Realist posts a long review of life at the US Embassy in Kabul, which is supposed to be the center of the civilian expertise and competency for the US COIN effort in Afghanistan.   I just want to highlight three items in the review:



How much of the local language do you need to know for daily living? Almost none. 

Size of expat community: Large and getting larger. I think we're close to 1,000 embassy staff on the compound....



 Leave behind any thoughts that this is going to be an exotic post, unless you're out in the field. Life on the Kabul compound is like living in America's tiniest, most poorly stocked college town. Interaction with Afghans and local culture is limited for most people. 









A little slice of America in Kabul where no one knows the local languages. Wonderful!
And remember this is after the 'civilian surge' into Afghanistan was supposed to take place.

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