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, February 11, 2010

Will Obama Carry Through On Bush Threat To UK?

By Steve Hynd


When Binyam Mohammed first went to the British courts to force revelations about UK knowledge of his illegal rendition and torture, the Bush administration threatened the UK with a downgrading of intelligence co-operation if they let the revelations proceed. Almost as soon as it assumed office, the Obama administration repeated those threats.


Now, following yesterday's release of the information the Bush administration wanted buried - key paragraphs that reveal the UK government knew its US ally was run by war criminals - Obama seems to be ready to carry out that threat.



On Wednesday, the White House said, "We appreciate that the U.K. Government stood by the principle of protecting foreign government intelligence in its court filings. We're deeply disappointed with the court's judgment today, because we shared this information in confidence and with certain expectations" and said it would cloud future intelligence relations with Britain.


Dennis Blair, U.S. director of national intelligence, on Wednesday condemned the release of the information.


"The protection of confidential information is essential to strong, effective security and intelligence cooperation among allies," he said. "The decision by a United Kingdom court to release classified information provided by the United States is not helpful, and we deeply regret it."


This despite the fact that the British court noted that all the information had already come out in US court proceedings last year.


So there's you're "hope and change" yet again, folks. Not only will Obama threaten allies in order to keep the war crimes of his predecessor covered up, he'll carry through on those threats.


Lovely.



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