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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Monday, May 31, 2010

Pepper Guns or Assault Carbines?

By Steve Hynd


The IDF would have it that the commandos who abseilled onto the Gaza Flotilla were at first armed only with paintball guns filled with capiscum rounds. It's a story that's got a lot of mileage with pro-Israel media, blogs and the IDF, but does it hold up?


The evidence seems to come from the IDF's own videos of the assault. Here's a still given to me by my friend Chris Albon as we discussed this on Twitter:


DjyX5


However, footage shot by the UK's Sky News (owned by Rupert Murdoch) clearly shows Israeli commandos abseilling to the decks with very different weapons.


Israeli weapon1


Israeli weapon2


Those look rather more like members of the Galil family: most likely the Galil MAR 5.56mm, an assault carbine developed for the IDF's special forces.


Galil MAR


And in any case the standard IDF paintball gun is apparently the same as the US Army's - the FN303. That looks like this:


FN303


So, what do you think? 



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3 comments:

  1. CharlesMay 31, 2010 at 4:14 PM

    SH asks, "So, what do you think?"
    I think that I expected to find good coverage and analysis at Newshoggers, and was not disappointed.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ron BeasleyMay 31, 2010 at 5:06 PM

    I don't think it matters if the Israelis were using slingshots or assault rifles - they were set up and overreacted like they always do. The real story is they weren't set up by the Palestinians but the Turks and that should worry the Israelis and the rest of the world a lot more.

    ReplyDelete
  3. BudourJune 1, 2010 at 1:29 AM

    You're a man of conscience, Steve, and a much needed voice of reason amidst the ridiculous pro-Israel propaganda. When the story of the Freedom Flotilla massacre broke out, I wondered how the IOF (aka the IDF) and the Israeli government would justify it. And I have to say that their lies brought ridiculousness to a new level. Their claims are so absurd and illogical you'd think they're joking. But sadly the U.S administration and Righties in both Israel and the US bought it. Of course the response would have been entirely different had, say, Iran attacked an aid flotilla carrying peace activists. The inconsistency and double standards are sickening.

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