Where do YOU want to go from here?

Dear friends,

I think that it is time for me to share with you some of my thoughts and ask for your opinion.

This blog has been up since May 1st, 2007, a little over 2,5 years now. Frankly, when I started this blog I did it mainly for myself. I saw it as a place to do something which I could never have done before: to speak my mind in absolute freedom, without having to worry about anybody's reaction. In my past life as a military analyst, speaking my mind freely had basically ended up costing me my career, so I figured that I might as well enjoy the fact that my services were no more required by my former bosses. I also decided to keep this blog 'sort of anonymous'. What I mean by this is that any government entity with just a modicum of desire to find out who hides behind that somewhat silly handle of "The Saker" can do that with no effort. Blogspot and Google, and all the other major corporate IT companies, are really dependencies of Uncle Sam and, besides, the NSA log all the traffic (voice/email/fax/SMS/etc) anyway. I knew that, and I still connected to the Internet from my home, without using any proxy servers, no Tor "onion' routing - no nothing. I was not hiding - I just wanted my former employers not to think about me any more, and I wanted my personality and past to be irrelevant to this blog. The fact is that I ended up sharing my name, and sometimes even my phone number, with quite a few of my readers. I am very happy with this decision. In a time when people just seem to be compelled to label everybody as "Left" or "Right", conservative or liberal, Christian or Muslim - I wanted to make such labelling as useless as possible. My personal basic philosophy of life is summarized in the section "words to live by" and that is good enough, IMHO.

The one thing which this blog never had is a clearly defined profile. It was a mix of everything and anything: I "recycled" news from other sources, I wrote short commentaries and I wrote lengthy analytical pieces, I tried to open up the comments section as much as possible to have an exchange of views with my readers and to make it possible for them to talk to each other. I opened an IRC channel for the same purpose. I have to honestly admit that I am not so sure as to how to proceed.

Some of my ideas did not bring any useful results. Like the IRC channel in which almost nobody ever came to chat.

For all my efforts and pleas - the number of comments/reaction to most posts here is dismally low. Interestingly, the number of visitors is not in decline, so it appears that most of you like to read what is posted here, but don't feel like commenting. Fair enough (though I am personally a little disappointed).

My big question to you all is: do you think that my re-posting articles from other sources which you could also find by yourself is of any use to you? Should I continue to regularly "recycle" news from other websites? I thought that this might save you some time, and that posting these articles here would be a way of generating a discussion, but the latter clearly did not happen.

I have been blessed with some terrific articles sent to me by Eric Walberg and Gilad Atzmon which I feel are definitely worth publishing here, but even those have generated few, if any, comments. Besides, every reader of my blog can go himself/herself to Eric's or Gilad's websites and read these articles there. Does it make sense for me to publish them here?

Since there is a total news blackout on Hezbollah, I made it a point of honor to publish almost every speech made by Hezbollah's secretary general Hassan Nasrallah. It is my sincere belief that Hezbollah is the single most important political force in the Middle-East, more important than any country, and that Hassan Nasrallah is an absolutely crucial personality whose every word counts. There is, in my opinion, no way to understand anything in the Middle-East unless one keeps a close eye on what Hezbollah and its leader say and do. But again - these posts almost never generated a comment and this begs the question - shall I continue posting such translations here?

Another big issue for me is 9/11. I am convinced of two things now: first, there are a huge number of developments taking place right now and the 9/11 Truth movement is gaining amazing strength, not only in the USA, but also abroad. Second, uncovering the truth about what happened on 9/11 might well be the key to bringing down the entire "US Nomenklatura" and the Israel Lobby which has now completely taken over the USA. Simply put - they did 9/11 and if we can show this it will put an absolutely unbearable spotlight on them and they will have to let go. I strongly feel that 9/11 is "THE" issue, but I also suspect that most of you do not feel that way. Do you want me to continue covering it?

Would you prefer if I limited myself to publishing only and exclusively my own comments, articles or analytical pieces. That would mean that if I had nothing to say a couple of weeks nothing at all would be published here.

Another option would be to make this the blog of several people, to open it up to more than one author. Some of you clearly have the skills to contribute very interesting comments and, as far as I know, you do not have a blog of your own (Lysander, Ya_Baqiyatullah, Alibi, - this is a not so subtle hint here), would you be interested in me trying to get more people involved here or would you be interested in writing for me?

Dear friends, I now ask you to please, *PLEASE!!!!*, take the time and post a reply to my questions here. I know that this is a pain, but I need your feedback to know what you do value (or not) in this blog.

Please do not send me an email, as I would like others to see what you wrote. I always enjoy getting emails from you, but this time I need to hear some opinions to decide what I shall do next.

Barring some big event, I will leave this post up until January 1st to give you as much time as possible to express your views. Based on your replies, I will then take a decision as to where we go from here and let you know.

Many thanks in advance, a very Happy New Year and a Blessed Nativity to you all!

Kind regards,

The Saker