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, July 1, 2012

Benjamin Netanyahu Undercut!

Commentary By Ron Beasley


From Newshoggers friend and contributor Gareth Porter we have this:


New Israeli Deputy PM Undercuts Strategy of Pressure on Obama



By staking out a policy line on Iran reflecting the views of the Israeli national security leadership, Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz has undercut the Benjamin Netanyahu government's carefully planned strategy to get U.S. President Barack Obama to threaten war against Iran if it doesn't give up its nuclear programme.


It could be the beginning of a process by which Netanyahu begins to climb down from a militarily aggressive policy that has provoked unprecedented dissent from high-ranking active and retired military and intelligence officials.


Mofaz, who brought his Kadima Party into the Netanyahu government in a May 9 deal, is a former Israeli chief of staff who had made threatening statements about Iran's nuclear programme as minister of defence in Likud Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government from 2003 to 2006.



This is a very refreshing and hopeful sign.  We knew that the Israeli military and intellegence services were opposed to an attack on Iran.



Even before adding Mofaz, Netanyahu was unable to muster a majority in the nine-member Israeli "security forum", which must approve a decision to go to war, according to a May 31 Ynet News report.


Only Netanyahu, Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman were said to be supporting an attack on Tehran's nuclear facilities, at least in principle. The other six, including IDF Chief Gantz, Mossad Chief Pardo and Mofaz, were all opposed.



Since Netanyahu could not get his own government to agree to an attack on Iran he was trying to politically force the Obama administration to do it via pressure on congress.  Mofaz just blew that ship out of the water. 


 



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2 comments:

  1. hidflectJuly 1, 2012 at 9:05 PM

    Any rational Israeli in their corridors of power must see how Netanyahu has been dowsing gasoline for years now on any vestiges of goodwill other countries had, or pretended to have, for them. Too little, too late, I think. There have actually been (shock) articles critical of Israel appearing in mainstream Western media and any comment sections you read on stories about that "beleaguered little beacon of democracy in the M.E" run a 100 to 1 along the lines of "fck 'em" or similar. That worm has turned.

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  2. John BallardJuly 1, 2012 at 9:58 PM

    Can we put away the popcorn now?

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