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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Saturday, September 17, 2011

Letter from Hosni Mubarak to Binyamin Ben-Eliezer

By John Ballard


I predict Big Pharoah's "Letter to Binyamin" will become one of the treasures of the Arab Spring.
Think Doonesbury in prose. But with more serious implications.



Letter from Hosni Mubarak to Binyamin Ben-Eliezer


Memo


From: Hosni Mubarak


To: Binyamin Fouad Ben-Eliezer


Re: Rules of the game have changed


Dear Binyamin,


Shako mako Binyamin?


See my old friend, I might be rotting on this hospital bed but I didn�t forget the Iraqi words you taught me. I heard of the good words you said about me. What a great friend you are. No one said something good about me except you, a Kuwaiti TV show presenter and of course my lovely �We are Sorry Mr. President� group here in Egypt.


I�m writing you this letter because, first, I have nothing else to do. Second, since I might never see you again, I thought it would be nice if I gave you advice I wouldn�t have given you if I were still in power.


I bet you are very concerned and bewildered about what�s going on around Israel. Well, let me put it very bluntly. In the past, if you wanted Egypt to do something, all what you had to do is call or visit me in Sharm. Today, you will have to call 80 million Egyptians.


The period of striking deals with strongmen such as myself is over. Now you will have to strike deals with millions of people who suddenly found their voice. This voice they found brought me to a court�s cage. It could very well bring me to the gallows.


Today, a real manifestation of pride and dignity is what drives Egyptians. In the past, when your friendly fire killed Egyptian border guards, my police apparatus managed to control things. Today, you cannot control the emotionally charged people who realized the extent of what they can manage to achieve. Heck, Libyans just managed to overthrow Qaddafi!


Does that mean Egyptians want to go to war? The answer is no. Nobody is talking about war in a country that has enough problems by itself. The new found sense of pride is what drove the recent events. A pride I was heavy handedly controlling. I�ve enough time now to ponder and fathom such facts!


What would you do if the virus spread to Palestinians? What would you do if thousands upon thousands of Palestinians marched to the borders demanding their country? Would you just shoot them? My police apparatus, in order to protect my regime, killed 800 protesters and look what happened afterwards. I am being tried for this and not for 30 years of dictatorship.


Assad who kept the peace in the Golan in order to fight you in Lebanon will soon be gone, and Syrians will demand their land back. What would you do? Tell them you want to keep on making wines there?


The rules of the game will have to change my old friend. If you want peace based on a two-state solution, you will have to look in the eyes of your colonial fascists of the West Bank and Golan and tell them it�s time to go. Unfortunately, no one in Israel is willing to do such a thing. In fact, Bibi ran away from the last negotiations so he can build more illegal settlements for these fascists. You will have to accept a compromise on Jerusalem. And nothing was put forward better than the Clinton Plan: what is Muslim and Christian becomes Palestinian and what is Jewish becomes Israeli. That entails you will have to forget the Temple Mount which you control only in your own imagination.


The age of maintaining the status quo is over Benyamin and now you guys have to make some serious decisions. Decisions such as the ones Rabin was willing to make and got killed for.


Yours,


Hosni Mubarak




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