17 million page views for SST and gone

I am leaving you.  Guest authors, commenters and the various troll nations may continue if you wish.  I may start another blog under "Pat Lang's Blog" but there will not be comments.  pl

Comments

[Geo]

Oh no. I hope you do start a blog. Thank you for your excellent insights into Syria.

[gordon reed]

SSt will be missed. I have learned much from you and your group and I have grown to trust your views because of your credentials and because you have been proven accurate in your assessments.

Gordon Reed

[optimax]

Sorry to hear you're leaving SST. You've always been an important source of information on various subjects for me. I hope you do continue writing on another blog.
Best wishes

Optimax

[Ked]

Understandable. Thanks very much - quite a committee you launched. I hope you do a one-way blog, esp on ME affairs, intel, faith.
Cheers!

[David E. Solomon]

Colonel Lang,

I have been reading your for years.

You will be sorely missed.

All the best,

David

[Serge]

I will read it religiously anyways!

[mike]

Colonel Lang -

Sorry to hear you are leaving. We have not always agreed 100% on issues, but I have always respected your moxie, your candor, and your service. I'll be reading your new blog.

[Dabbler]

Thank you for what you've done here. Nothing lasts forever.

Please favor us with a brief explanation of your motivation for ending it (at least your version of it). If you present your points to us, I promise not to argue against them.

[morganSloan]

Goodbye Pat Lang!
Enjoyed your blog for many many years.
Good health and good spirits.
MorganSloan

[AshTheLightningFan]

Horrible night! The Nashville Predators lost bad tonight, and now face elimination in the Stanley Cup finals.

And now my favorite blog (which I've been following since my early 20's - a decade long love affair!!!) might get eliminated too!

TTG...talk him off the ledge! Hell, talk me off the ledge!
Don't think I can process the BS of this world without this place.

[michael mccarthy]

Thank you, very much. I wish you well.

[The Porkchop Express]

Say it isn't so !

[Mathiasalexander]

I will miss you

[FkDahl]

In one way or another I hope to continue to read your correspondence.

[Le Renard Subtil]

Out like a Greenie in the night, eh? Ah well...it was a good run.

[DL]

I knew this day would come eventually. This has been my favorite website for over ten years. We all learned so much from you. Thank you!

[b]

My congrats to the 17 million pageviews.

I sincerely hope that you will be back writing here. Your contributions in your pieces and comments are invaluable. It would be a huge loss and a shame if the knowledge and wisdom you acquired over many years would not be spread to the next generation(s).

(My advise as a fellow blogger:
Take some rest from the blog. Don't feel pressed to post something every day. Come back when the urge to write is there again. I had and will again have such periods myself. They are just necessary breaks.)

[BabelFish]

Bon chance, Pat!

[anonymous]

Gone but not forgotten.this is the story of johnny rotten.

[JJackson]

pl
I am very sorry to hear this but thank-you so much for all you have done trying to bring some reality into the discussions on FP/IR. Best wishes to you and SWMBO.
Jonathan Jackson.

[Simplicius]

Colonel Lang,

Very sad news, but wholly understandable given the open nature of your unique blog. There reaches a point where the wisdom of the crowd becomes the insanity of the group. Your pearls of wisdom have been greatly appreciated by this swine nonetheless. Perhaps you will consider an invitation only membership on your new blog - allowing comments only from those who know how to hit the nail on the head.

As this is my last change to comment, I'd just like to express my gratitude to yourself, your guest authors and other contributors for some fascinating insights. SST is a rare thing indeed and I consider it an privilege to have been able to make a small contribution myself.

Very best wishes for the future, sir.

8261 C422 4BFA 018D 65CF CEA8 9457 1E0B CBDB 9931

[Balint Somkuti, PhD]

Thank you sir, for all of your efforts. It was a real honor to be member here.

[keninparis]

What an exceptional learning experience for me here! I suppose for many others, too. This has been my first stop in the morning for news and analysis for many years. I hope that you continue your excellent work, in a new form if that is your wish. With much gratitude for your time, energy, engagement. kip

[Walrus]

Que?

[English Outsider]

Colonel,

Thank you for what you and your Committee have done.

I would imagine that the work load of checking through comments day after day must be very high. The comments are always interesting and very often instructive but the true substance of your blog is in the articles.

I hope that you will continue these on the new site you are contemplating. If your committee members also continued to contribute then the work load would be greatly reduced but what you are doing would retain its value.

For me the site had an extra fascination in that it opened a window on to American politics at a time when it looked as if American democracy might regenerate itself. The material was there but it didn't come off. Maybe my pessimistic take on that is influenced by the considerably bleaker picture we see here and in Europe, but that vision of a democracy painfully searching for reform and a fairer dispensation was one that seemed tantalisingly achievable in America in 2016.

Back to reality. But you and your committee offered the only well-informed and balanced account of what is happening as a result of current American/Western policy so I do hope you will, one way or another, be able to continue.

If not, thank you again for giving us SST.

English Outsider