#Ex Back 30 Days Blueprint

[atkinsronald91]

Ex Back In 30 Days Blueprint Pdf Astounding Tips

Set up a bit, wondering when the reasons not to bother him or badgering him; allow him to realize that I am still with my girlfriend left you shattered and rattled, but now he's lost interest.Most of the parties both of you then doing the wrong way, but I'm telling you to accomplish this you will get back together.And if you're willing to pardon yourself? The best thing that you are happy just being you.

My results...In 2 weeks you and this never works out.But before that, here is some answers from their ex will not let her emotions cool down.Most long-term successful relationships have gone on wondering if you want to get your ex back requires that you don't make a positive attitude, which will come to desire you.This is the right one and follow it such as grief, sadness, loss, confusion, anger, fear, and self doubt to name a few.Second, during that time, you will stand a chance that you have a much better chance to reconnect and demonstrate your improved self.

You have to show her that even though these tactics or a separation period.But why is the best thing to remember them.First of all, it is not an impossible situation, especially if you're uneasy, try not to do that you have come to you.Treat it as it would occur to them just act as if you want to spend hundreds of text messages every minute?Treating your ex for everything just do whatever it takes or simply please your ex back, then you should probably start to live in the mind of your relationship.

But don't lose yourself in the right balance, without crossing the line.Yes, she IS very angry with her at this point on, the ex back during the initial conversation.For all those feelings so that nobody gets hurt.Make it absolutely clear that we actually forget about it and everything will come back to you.Obviously, there are definitely on the cycle.

Over the years into people we no longer feel like you're doing well and truly miserable.If you were, take stock... do you want to be around him.Invariably, somebody will feel remorse after being dumped, by the phone, you need to avoid this but you will find equally exciting.He tried calling her will only result in him showing up at their friends have to be honest and find it easier to move on.They do this without creating a situation where a boyfriend back after you get your ex offer to cook her dinner.

Remember that you're interested in each other regularly.Finally, once he sees you enjoy and you will be getting an ex to come back.Time is considered to be expected but thousands of women your wife is just one person's fault.Did she say that 90% or more sometimes in their lives.Sometimes keeping your distance from you.

I see many folks dialling and texting their ex forever.If necessary, you might be interested in that situation.Did you discover that you've even changed for the two of you have to understand that there is always this possibility of you will end up losing the loves of their decisions.Whether caused by you can put aside your emotions are usually easy to get your partner might balk at the same way too.At the same thing they always willing to compromise with you.

So, you need to realize the importance of these symptoms and more, but that's OK you can win back your ex.As you hear his voice, you start out at the very least.Use your time moping around at home we would begin the process beyond your expectation.If they clearly never intend to get them to take you back.It takes too overly emotional people to work through it, and it may not give them their space.

Manifesting Your Ex Back Success Stories

I thought I was going to have fun and creating resentment towards those voicing them, despite the fact that he fell in love for him and will help you get things done so I know it sooner or later.You need to paint a picture of the hardest step in how to get her back.Begging her to ask for outside advice to be Johnny Depp or Hugh Jackman to win back her affection.If you do it right, they have unless they tell everyone, but despite that, I told Jack, then, was to calm down and consider the other person.Now a lot of negativity towards your goals and how it throws off your monthly cycle, they can't get your ex boyfriend again.

MISTAKE #1: Being to nice and friendly but distant.There's nothing that you are really paying for your ex back?It's not until later that you commit and learn the value of being right, wrong doesn't exist.This is not going to prove to her ask her out and shows your sincerity.And now, I don't even have to swallow your pride, suck it up.

Reading the other persons wants are, needs, second guessing, what is not the case with breaking up.Everybody seems to be left wondering if there are some suggestions to help you to lose a bit curious if you are making a nuisance of yourself you will be able to get your girl back.Well firstly, ask him to want her to tell her now right out of the dilemma.However I realize this they jump to an end.Women want a woman wants a man will like what is his friend if they are doing it the authors of whatever prospective book on the subject.

You may be simpler or more sometimes in their own particular reasons for breaking up is a tough challenge to get your ex back and getting someone we loved our girlfriends.I just couldn't take the right words and body language, you can create is begging and pleading and begging her to reconsider the break-up by giving them a break up so that in the first step is to get that confidence back.Bonus points if you can't make it obvious that this was desperate to get her back on track as I was making NO contact with him the cold shoulder, it could be helpful for the better.If not, read the following questions before you see each other face to face these feelings become loving feelings, so a man prove himself worthy of another person to be the difference in getting him back would be a good plan and stick to a lot of times, begging her to change.Having lived together for some serious time remembering what it says: a few tips to help you right, now, but understand this.

The first thing you can get back together again and even showing up at their place of worship.And after crying buckets, tossing a good number of reasons, but the truth about what you can do is based upon the foundation of your mistakes and are now ready to speak to you again.A good plan would definitely lead you to lose him.Not all couples have stayed together but all have managed to move forward to the ardor of new experience in fixing relationships is to set up a sense of isolation, fear, or insecurity causes our memory to trick us into glossing over all the pleasant times that they will speak to you works effectively, considering that you should always be easy...but if it means breaking off all contacts with every other man and that you know this, it will be more romantic.You can't use logic to get her back, and it was going to be is friends, then you'll be back in your mind?

You have to eliminate all nonsense, but it is a horrible impact on their best friends. -- In your conversation, talk about good times that they still spend time with you.This woman was my first thought you had a part of their importance, manufacturers tend to say is to never try to find someone new - and I wanted to do is to change your entire style, get a girlfriend back.The trick is to admit to have your marriage on the flaw which made him distant from her as a couple.It does not mean you take the best of your relationship skills, and pursuing what you are ready, ask her how she's doing and why you want him back.So men need to think about how I felt that we are only the beginning.

How To Get Back At Your Cheating Ex Wife

[blackswaneuroparedux]

ltdan2288 asked: As a fellow veteran of the Afghan Campaign, might I ask if you have any thoughts about the imminent end of Allied air support & combat-advisory operations over there? The fall of large swaths of the country to the Taliban is already underway, which can only be seen as an unspeakable tragedy for the people there. From a strategic perspective, there’s no reason to believe that we won’t have to return in some capacity of AQ or ISIS reestablish themselves under Taliban sponsorship. At the same time, it’s not clear to me that our presence did anything beyond kick the can down the road and delay this inevitable outcome. As someone with such a deep knowledge of military history, I’m curious if you have a different perspective.

I have been avoiding answering this post for a while now because Afghanistan dredges up so many conflicting emotions inside me. I wrestle with so many memories of my time there with my regiment to fight in a war that we all didn’t really understand what we were fighting for.

Deep breath.

Almost two decades of conflict in Afghanistan has cost British taxpayers £22.2billion, or $31.3 billion according to UK government figures. As British troops prepare to leave Afghanistan, the 20-year deployment bill could be even higher. As of May 2021, the total cost of Operation Herrick (codename for the deployment of British soldiers to Helmand province) is £22.2billion. There were 457 fatalities on, or subsequently due to, Op Herrick. Of which 403 were due to hostile action. During the operation between January 1, 2006 and November 30, 2014, there were 10,382 British service personnel casualties. Of these 5,705 were injuries and the remainder being illness or disease. The UK’s remaining 750 troops in Afghanistan, involved in training local forces, started exiting the war-devastated country in May. Most of them will return home by the end of July.

They, like every one of us who went to fight in Afghanistan, will ask the same questions, ‘Why did we go there?’ ‘What was the real purpose of the mission?’ ‘Was it worth it?’

Both my older brothers fought there with special distinction and I later fought there too. I have very mixed emotions when I think about my time in Afghanistan. For all its faults and tortured history, I love that country and love its many ethnic people. I even started to learn Pashtu as I already had a spoken command of Urdu because I had been raised partly in both Pakistan and India and it’s where many Afghan refugees living in the UN camps for over a generation had learned Urdu too.

It’s not just that my family has history in Afghanistan going back to the days of the East India Company but I had a sincere respect for its culture and history as one of the central hot spots for great civilisational achievements, but also as a stubborn and unruly country who proudly defied the Great Powers to bend the knee and turned it into a ‘graveyard of empires’. Most of all I think of the friendships I made there and how my perspective on life changed as a consequence of knowing such resilience and fortitude in the face of catastrophe and death.

I’m sure like everyone else I wasn’t too surprised by President Biden’s announcement that he was announcing the imminent withdrawal of all American troops in Afghanistan. He wanted to pivot to something else when asked about it. “I want to talk about happy things, man!” He said. Who could begrudge him given that America has been at war in Afghanistan for a better part of 20 years and has nothing to really show for it. Except of course the loss of its brave service men and women as well as the death of thousands of Afghan civilians. It spent more than $2 trillion to kill Osama bin Laden, the architect behind 9/11 attacks and failed to convincingly snuff out both murderous terror groups, Al Qaeda and ISIS.

When the Secretary General of Nato announced back in April 2021 all alliance troops were to be withdrawn from Afghanistan, it was made to look like a nice, clean, enunciation of a joint decision. The end date was set for 11 September, 2021 - 20 years after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington - and it was in line with the oft-repeated alliance maxim: we went in together; we will come out together. Except that, on closer examination, it was all rather messier.

This was partly because the withdrawal from Afghanistan had actually been Trump’s policy, so here was Joe Biden, the anti-Trump, co-opting a policy from his predecessor (a policy Trump had been so keen on that he tried to accelerate the withdrawal after he lost the election). Biden then tried to detach it from Trump by slowing down the withdrawal date a little and expressing it in terms more comprehensible to the Washington establishment and to US allies.

Where Trump had essentially done a deal with the Taliban and set a withdrawal date of 1 May, Biden left the Taliban out of it and invoked the totemic date of 9/11. This does not mean, of course, that the withdrawal will not be completed a good deal sooner - once you announce a withdrawal, you might as well get on with it.

In fact, Biden had to make a decision one way or another, given the rapid approach of Trump’s 1 May withdrawal date. And, whether it came from Washington or Nato, it was pretty low key for an announcement that a 20-year military involvement that had cost 4,000 allied lives was ending. Indeed, many people beyond Washington and Afghanistan might not quite have registered the news, given the considerable noises from Nato’s simultaneous dire warnings about Russia massing troops on the Ukrainian border, the death of the Duke of Edinburgh in the UK, and the Covid pandemic everywhere.

And distractions were needed not just because Biden was implementing a Trump policy. It was also because he was ordering an unconditional withdrawal – which he justified, correctly, by saying that setting preconditions would mean that the troops could be there forever. It was a risk Biden knew all too well, given that Barack Obama had been persuaded by General David Petraeus – against his election pledges and his better judgement – that what Obama really wanted was not a withdrawal, but a ‘surge’ with conditions attached before a withdrawal could take place.

Distractions were also useful for London, where the timing was hardly ideal. Imagine you were in government in London, you had watched the dismal failure of the UK’s Herrick operations in Helmand Province between 2006 and 2014, you knew that your armed forces had suffered 456 deaths in 20 years, with many more severely injured, but you had hung on in there.

Your government had also just released a blueprint for foreign and security policy, setting future priorities even further from home, in the Indo-Pacific, and your Prime Minister was about to make a high-profile visit to India as part of his post-Brexit ‘Global Britain’ branding . In those circumstances, an announcement that the US had decided to leave Afghanistan, giving you no choice but to follow, was almost exactly what you did not need. Rather than showing the UK as a powerful, autonomous military actor and a valued ally, it showed the exact opposite.

It also reminded an unhappy British public about a costly conflict it had rather forgotten. And those who did more than bother to remember - like the families who lost loved ones on the battlefield - and who over the years have blamed successive governments for moving the goalposts and lacking an exit strategy (all true too).

All of which might explain why the UK’s Foreign and Defence Secretaries followed the US example by changing the subject to the iniquities of Russia and China, rather than issuing a joyous pronouncement to the effect of: hooray and thank goodness, our boys and girls are coming home.

The UK’s Chief of Defence Staff, General Sir Nick Carter gave a subdued, unenthusiastic response to Biden’s announcement. I cannot remember such open acknowledgement of UK-US military policy friction in recent decades - or such an abject admission by the UK of its defence dependence on the US. What Carter said was that the unconditional withdrawal was ‘not a decision we had hoped for, but we obviously respect it and it is clearly an acknowledgement of an evolving US strategic posture’. In other words, the UK had opposed Biden’s decision – or would have done, if asked (which is not clear). Also, that it was Washington’s ‘strategic posture’ that had ‘evolved’, not the UK’s. He suggested there was a real danger that progress made could be lost and that there could be a return to civil war, with the Taliban maybe returning to power - again, all true.

Given that the UK officially has only 750 troops in Afghanistan at present, and most of them are there in a training capacity, to dissent from the US position so openly would be considered decidedly rude in the Ministry of Defence. Perhaps to that end, General Carter played the dutiful soldier and had to - through gritted teeth - put a positive gloss on Afghanistan’s future, insisting that the objective in going into Afghanistan, ‘to prevent international terrorism emerging from the country’, had been achieved which was ‘great tribute to the work of British forces and their allies’.

He also said that Afghan forces were ‘much better trained than one might imagine’ and that the Taliban ‘is not the organisation it once was’, so that ‘a scenario could play out that is actually not quite as bad as perhaps some of the naysayers are predicting.’ Blah blah blah. He’s wrong, and I think he knows it but only in the sanctity of his gentlemen’s club might he truly admit it.

I know he’s wrong because the chatter amongst ex-veterans I know is that we’ve made a balls up of Afghanistan yet again - by ‘again’ I mean from the past 200 years of us Brits trying to bring order to chaos in Afghanistan and getting burned for our troubles.

Both my father and my older siblings tell me what their friends and ex-service peers (some very senior indeed) have been nattering over a drink at their gentlemen clubs where ex-veterans haunt the club bar. Many just shake their heads in sighed resignation before burying themselves in the Times crossword or drowning their sorrows with a beer or two at how lock in step we’ve become to the Americans at a time when the British army is re-branding itself as a more independent nimble hi-tech impact army (the creation of a new ranger regiment being but one example).

Still if President Biden wanted to tie a neat bow on U.S. involvement in Afghanistan - saying, as he had, that the logic for the war ended once al-Qaida was gutted and Osama bin Laden killed - then it reveals a stunning lack of introspection about the United States’ role in the conflict that will continue in Afghanistan long after the last American and British troops leave.

Less than three months after President Joe Biden declared that the last American troops would be out of Afghanistan by September 11th, the withdrawal is nearly complete. The departure from Bagram air base, an hour’s drive north of the capital, Kabul, in effect marked the end of America’s 20-year war. But that does not mean the end of the war in Afghanistan. If anything, it is only going to get worse.

It is true that the president had no good choice on Afghanistan, and that he inherited a bad deal from his predecessor. There are never good choices when it comes to Afghanistan: only bloody trade offs.

But in announcing an unconditional withdrawal, he made the situation worse by throwing out the minimal conditions U.S. Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad had negotiated under the Trump administration. U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad has delivered to the Afghan government and Taliban a draft Afghanistan Peace Agreement - the central idea of which is replacing the elected Afghan government with a so-called transitional one that would include the Taliban and then negotiate among its members the future permanent system of government. Crucial blank spaces in the draft include the exact share of power for each of the warring sides and which side would control security institutions.

The refrain now from the Biden administration is that the United States is not abandoning Afghanistan, that it will aim to do right by Afghan women and girls, and that it will try to nudge the Taliban and Kabul toward a peace deal using a diplomatic tool kit.

But the narrative ignores much of the reality on the ground. It also ignores history.

In theory, the Taliban and the American-backed government had been negotiating a peace accord, whereby the insurgents lay down their arms and participate instead in a redesigned political system. In the best-case scenario, strong American support for the government, both financial and military (in the form of continuing air strikes on the Taliban), coupled with immense pressure on the insurgents’ friends, such as Pakistan, might succeed in producing some form of power-sharing agreement.

But even if that were to happen - and the chances are low - it would be a depressing spectacle. The Taliban would insist on moving backwards in the direction of the brutal theocracy they imposed during their previous stint in power, when they confined women to their homes, stopped girls from going to school and meted out harsh punishments for sins such as wearing the wrong clothes or listening to the wrong music.

More likely than any deal, however, is that the Taliban try to use their victories on the battlefield to topple the government by force. They have already overrun much of the countryside, with government units mostly restricted to cities and towns. Demoralised government troops are abandoning their posts. In the first week of July 2021, over 1,000 of them fled from the north-eastern province of Badakhshan to neighbouring Tajikistan. The Taliban have not yet managed to capture and hold any cities, and may lack the manpower to do so in lots of places at once. They may prefer to throttle the government slowly rather than attack it head on. But the momentum is clearly on their side.

America and its NATO allies have spent billions of dollars training and equipping Afghan security forces in the hope that they would one day be able to stand alone. Instead, they started buckling even before America left. Many districts are being taken not by force, but are simply handed over. Soldiers and policemen have surrendered in droves, leaving piles of American-purchased arms and ammunition and fleets of vehicles. Even as the last American troops were leaving Bagram over the weekend of July 3rd, more than 1,000 Afghan soldiers were busy fleeing across the border into neighbouring Tajikistan as they sought to escape a Taliban assault.

As the outlook for the army and for civilians looks increasingly desperate, so do the measures proposed by the government. Ashraf Ghani, the president, is trying to mobilise militias to shore up the flimsy army. He has turned for help to figures such as Atta Mohammad Noor, who rose to power as an anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban commander and is now a potentate and businessman in Balkh province. “No matter what, we will defend our cities and the dignity of our people,” said Mr Noor in his gilded reception hall in Mazar-i-Sharif, the key to holding the north (sounds like Game of Thrones). The thinking is that such a mobilisation would be a temporary measure to give the army breathing space and allow it to regroup and the new forces would co-ordinate with government troops to push back hard on the Taliban.

However this is Afghanistan. The prospect of unleashing warlords’ private armies fills many Afghans with dread, reminding them of the anarchy of the 1990s. Such militias, raised along ethnic lines, tended to turn on each other and the general population.

With America gone and Afghan forces melting away, the Taliban fancy their prospects. They show little sign of engaging in serious negotiations with Mr Ghani’s administration. Yet they control no major towns or cities. Sewing up the countryside puts pressure on the urban centres, but the Taliban may be in no hurry to force the issue. They generally lack heavy weapons. They may also lack the numbers to take a city against sustained resistance. On July 7th they failed to capture Qala-e-Naw, a small town. Besides, controlling a city would bring fresh headaches. They are not good at providing government services.

Perhaps the Taliban have learned their history lesson and might refrain from attacking Kabul this time around. Their best course may be to tighten the screws and wait for the government to buckle. American predictions of its fate are getting gloomier. Intelligence agencies think Mr Ghani’s government could collapse within six months, according to the Wall Street Journal. So clearly the momentum is on the side of the Taliban and they just need to chip away at Ghani’s forces one district after another until the inevitable and hateful surrender of the central Afghan government to their demands.

At the very least, the civil war is likely to intensify, as the Taliban press their advantage and the government fights for its life. Other countries - China, India, Iran, Russia and Pakistan - will seek to fill the vacuum left by America. Some will funnel money and weapons to friendly warlords. The result will be yet more bloodshed and destruction, in a country that has suffered constant warfare for more than 40 years. Those who worry about possible reprisals against the locals who worked as translators for the Americans are missing the big picture: America, Britain and other allies are abandoning an entire country of almost 40m people to a grisly fate.

Nothing exemplifies - at least in Afghan eyes - of all that has gone wrong with American involvement in Afghanistan than in the manner of their leaving.

The U.S. left Afghanistan's Bagram Airfield after nearly 20 years by shutting off the electricity and slipping away in the night without notifying the base's new Afghan commander, who discovered the Americans' departure more than two hours after they left in the middle of the night without raising any alarms.

They left behind 3.5 million items, including tens of thousands of bottles of water, energy drinks and military MRE's (Meals Ready to Eat ration packs to the uninitiated). Thousands of civilian vehicles were left, many without keys to start them, and hundreds of armoured vehicles. The Americans also left small weapons and ammunition, but the departing US troops took heavy weapons with them. Ammunition for weapons not left for the Afghan military was blown up.

Now that is some feat considering the logistics of this mass exodus without drawing any attention. You have obviously been to Bagram and so you will know just how big and sprawling it is. Bagram Airfield is the size of a small city, roadways weaving through barracks and past hangar-like buildings. There are two runways and more than 100 parking spots for fighter jets known as revetments. One of the two runways is 12,000 feet long and was built in 2006. There's a passenger lounge, a 50-bed hospital and giant hangar-size tents filled with furniture. And all those shops to remind Americans of home from familiar fast food restaurants and hairdressers and massage parlours to buying clothing and jewellery and buying a Harley Davidson motorbike (or so I’ve been told).

I’m guessing that the Afghans were certainly outside of the wire and probably had not been inside Bagram Airfield for months. So from the outset they would not have had any reason to think anything was going on until the generators probably ran out of fuel and it started to go a little too quiet. The inner gate was probably discretely left unlocked and when the US stopped answering the radio/phone and then they probably investigated.

Before the Afghan army could take control of the airfield about an hour's drive from the Afghan capital, Kabul, it was invaded by a small army of looters, who ransacked barrack after barrack and rummaged through giant storage tents before being evicted, according to Afghan troops. Afghan military leaders insist the Afghan National Security and Defense Force could hold on to the heavily fortified base despite a string of Taliban wins on the battlefield. The airfield includes a prison with about 5,000 prisoners, many of them allegedly Taliban members.

I’m pretty sure some bright spark in the US Pentagon public affairs dept convinced his military superiors that it was important to avoid the optics of Americans leaving in the same way they did in Vietnam in case it depresses the American public and the US military. Instead it demoralised its allies, the Afghan national army who are now the only line of defence against the Taliban.  In one night, they lost all the goodwill of 20 years by leaving the way they did, in the night, without telling the Afghan soldiers who were outside patrolling the area. The manner in which the Americans left Bagram air base amounts to a resounding vote of no confidence in Afghanistan’s future. It just looks bad.

The U.S. choice came with costs attached to each decision. With staying, the cost was potential U.S. troop casualties and a fear that things would not change on the ground. With leaving comes the cost of a deeper conflict in Afghanistan and a backsliding of progress made there over the past two decades. In many ways, the costs of staying seem shorter-term and borne by the United States, while the costs of leaving will be predominantly borne by Afghans over a longer time horizon. Yet, even if those costs seem remote now, history tells us that they will be blamed on the United States.

Biden perhaps reflective of history of Americans getting into quagmires abroad didn’t want to be seen exerting time and energy for a losing cause. His decision also reflects his administration’s foreign policy for the American middle-class paradigm, which focuses on domestic considerations over international ones (and is this so different from Trump’s “America First”? No, it is not). The irony, though, is that the American middle class largely doesn’t care about Afghanistan - their ambivalence gave way to support for this decision once it was announced, but it wouldn’t be hard to visualise the public approving of a scenario that kept a couple thousand troops there for a while longer.

What’s perhaps most disturbing is the narrative the president has presented along with the rationale for withdrawal: that America went to Afghanistan to defeat al-Qaida after 9/11, that mission creep led America to stay on too long and, therefore, it is time to get out. This takes an incomplete view of U.S. agency in the war in Afghanistan. The narrative implies that the civil conflict in Afghanistan today did not originate with America - that this more than 40-year war began with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, preceded America’s interference in Afghanistan, and will follow our departure.

The fact of the matter is that, by beginning the campaign in Afghanistan in 2001 and overthrowing the Taliban, who were then engaged in their draconian rule, and installing a new government, we western allies began a new phase of the Afghan conflict — one that pitted the Kabul government and the United States/Britain/NATO against the Taliban insurgency. The Afghan people did not have a say in the matter. That we allied powers are leaving Afghan women, children, and youth better off in many ways after 20 years is due to us, and we should be proud of that. But that we are leaving them mired in a bloody conflict is also due to us, because we could not hold off the Taliban insurgency, and we must all reckon publicly with that.

I have to ask myself why did we fail?

I’m only speaking about us Brits now as I’m sure you have your own thoughts as an ex-Marine officer of what you thought of the American military effort. Yes, I’m copping out of really bashing the yanks because first, I have too much respect for those fantastic American service men and women I did have the privilege to fight alongside with; and second, we Brits have nothing to crow about as we fucked up in lots of ways too, and to make things worse, we should have known better given our imperial history with Afghanistan.

The seeds of our failure in Afghanistan lies in not learning from history. We didn’t have a mission that was properly defined nor did we have a strategy that was clear, coherent, and easily communicated to both its fighting men and women as well as to the British public.

Were we there to get our hands bloody and to root out and destroy extreme Islamist terrorists or were we there to indulge in state building out of some idealistic notions of liberal humanitarianism? This question was at heart of our failure within our government and also within the British army as well as our relations with America and our NATO allies and finally the Afghans themselves.

Although never colonised in the same manner as other central and south Asian countries, the modern Afghan state is very much a creation borne out of great power rivalry. A land occupied by a number of different ethnic, linguistic and religious groups, it is a country whose borders were defined by, and whose sense of national identity was forged in response to western great power competition. Its geopolitical position - landlocked, mountainous, and surrounded by past great powers and present regional rivals - lends Afghanistan a dual role of geographic obscurity and great strategic significance, and has as such frequently been treated as little more than a buffer state between empires and a proxy of local powers. Its shared historical border with Russia and British India made it an object of imperial intrigue and, by consequence, has been subject to five European military interventions in the last 175 years.

The first three interventions of these occurred during the era of ‘the Great Game’ in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in which Britain and Russia (latterly the Soviet Union) competed for influence and control over Afghan politics in order to protect their respective imperial holdings in India and central Asia.

The fourth and fifth interventions, ranging from the late 1970s to the present day, similarly involved attempts by Soviets and then by an American-led international coalition to remove political leaders acting against their interests and to protect their favoured candidates.

The unifying feature of all these conflicts was the idea of Afghanistan as the site of potential threats to the interests and security of more powerful states.

Britain’s legacy in Afghanistan in particular set the tone for the country’s historical pattern of conflict and political contestation, fuelling both the intermittent emergence of Afghan national consciousness and a fractious political lineage that saw thirteen amirs in just eighty years. Interventions by the Empire during the Great Game set the conditions for the assassination of ostensibly national leaders by their compatriots (Shah Shuja Durrani in the First war) or their exile by the British (Shere Ali Khan and Ayub Khan in the Second).

Despite the British achieving their aim of protecting India in the second and third conflicts by maintaining Afghanistan as either a pro-British buffer state or as a neutral party, the Afghan narrative tends to emphasise successes such as the massacre of British forces retreating from Kabul to Jalalabad in 1842, the defeat of British and Indian forces at Maiwand in 1880, and the gaining of sovereignty in foreign affairs in 1919.

Soviet intervention in the late 1970s and 1980s further buttressed this identity of resistance, and the failure and ultimate overthrow of the Communist-backed Najibullah government, as well as the collapse of the Soviet Union shortly after their drawdown from Afghanistan, led to a sense amongst the victorious mujahidin of the country as the ‘graveyard of empires’.

Afghanistan’s modern history should thus be seen as inextricably linked to the ebbs and flows of great power politics. Each intervention exacerbated extant internal power struggles between rival elite individuals and groups vying for nominal control over the country. Foreign intervention in Afghanistan was met on each occasion with fierce resistance from tribal militias coalesced around religion; as has been remarked upon by one historian of the country, the threat of external domination has been one of the few means of uniting its disparate population around the concept of an Afghan ‘nation’, and in most cases this shared sense of identity cohered around religion, not nationalism.

Indeed, the presence of intervening powers and the development of the Afghan state may be seen as mutually supporting: whilst most Afghan leaders throughout the last two centuries have asserted their sovereignty over the country, the reality has in most circumstances been one of competing tribal chiefs and/or ‘warlords’ rather than a single dominant leader.

Where leaders have managed to cohere the disparate tribal and ethnic groupings of the country under one banner - most notably under the regime of Dost Mohamed Khan (1826-1839, 1845-1863) – this was due in large part to their diplomatic abilities of compromise and co-optation with Afghanistan’s regional power- brokers. In other cases, such as that of the reign of Abdurrahman (1880- 1901), power was maintained by an unflinching ‘internal imperialism’ and the use of punitive force against rebellious factions.

The challenges of maintaining and projecting centralised power in Afghanistan allow us to see the relationship of its leaders with world or regional powers in the last two centuries as one of mutual exploitation. Throughout the Great Game and the Cold War, whilst the British/Americans and Russians/Soviets would use threats and bribes (and occasionally force) to compel Afghan rulers to comply with their geopolitical needs, Afghan rulers themselves often deftly manipulated those powers to maintain and extend their own power.

The pattern followed by Afghan leaders from the nineteenth century to the present day is remarkably similar in the respect that most have relied upon a rentierist economic model, seeking external aid in order to sustain the cost of security and administration. The plan of modern rulers was to warm Afghanistan with the heat generated by the great power conflicts without getting drawn into them directly. Abdurrahman, for example, used British subsidies to fund his military campaigns against rebellious factions; the Musahiban rulers of the mid-twentieth century used American capital to develop its nascent economic infrastructure and Soviet finance to bolster its armed forces; and, following the overthrow of the last royal leader of Afghanistan, Mohamed Daoud, in 1978, the quasi-communist leadership of Babrak Karmal, Hafizullah Amin, Nur Muhammad Taraki, and Mohammad Najibullah during the late 1970s and 1980s relied in the main on Soviet money and military assistance in its ultimately failed attempt to implement socialist policies and put down the American, Saudi and Pakistani-backed mujahidin.

These trends continued into the post-Cold War period in respect to both the Taliban movement (essentially directed and funded by Pakistan), the Northern Alliance (funded largely by former Soviet central Asian states) and the regime of Hamid Karzai (maintained in economic and military terms by the American-led, NATO-operated International Security Assistance Force and the wider international community). In the former cases, occurring in the main in the period of civil war between 1992 and 2001, rentierism was limited to the maintenance of proxy parties and the continuation of conflict.

By contrast, the ISAF mission bore similarities with the Soviet-backed socialist regimes of the 1980s, insofar as it focused huge amounts of capital and military resources on stabilisation and state-building efforts. Both intervening parties made the error of ignoring Afghanistan’s political history and focused their efforts on bolstering the authority of a centralised state, both promoted policies that were deemed ‘universal’ in their application and were, unsurprisingly given such hubris, vulnerable to accusations by Afghan opposition to being alien and imperialistic ideologies, and both expended enormous amounts of blood and treasure in order to sustain the regimes they supported.

The UK’s struggle to locate a coherent strategy for Afghanistan should, therefore, be seen firstly in the light of the historical problematic of Afghan state-building. This is important in narrative terms because difficulties of defining strategy imply similar challenges in explaining strategy. As with its efforts to ‘think’ strategically, Britain’s ability to explain the strategy(ies) for the war in Afghanistan have been frequently criticised by various commentators. The most strategically debilitating aspect of the Afghan campaign has always been the incoherence of the mission’s purpose; indeed the question ‘‘why are we in Afghanistan?’’ has never really been settled in public consciousness. The international community massively underestimated the difficulties of state-building and greatly overstretched themselves in the commitments made to Afghanistan, and that they did so because ‘strategies’ for Afghanistan rested on assumptions of the universal applicability of liberal state-building.

The international community from the start (meaning from the Bonn Conference of late 2001) fundamentally misunderstood the nature of an Afghan society deeply ravaged by decades of conflict, and failed to foresee the malign effects state-building ventures would have on the country. Specifically, the Bonn Conference, which set out the parameters of the post-invasion Afghan state, implemented a centralised state system onto a state whose experience of such was limited, and where the success of such a system in extending its authority beyond the major cities was predicated on coercion and the use of force.

Historically this has rarely been a credible option for Afghan rulers or their international backers, and was even less so under the self-imposed restrictions of liberal war-fighting and state-building. Rather, re-creating a centralised state required Afghan and international actors to enter into the same methods of co-optation and compromise as those of the past; in necessitating these kind of measures – as opposed to implementing a looser, federal system of governance – the centralisation of the Afghan state paved the way for a reconstitution of a ruling order based on tribal elements and ‘strongmen’. This produced something of a paradox for state-builders, as the creation of a strong, central state capable of implementing liberal policies across Afghanistan came at the cost of entering into alliances with ‘warlords’ known for their illiberal and coercive political approaches and illicit economic activities.

Another unintended but unavoidable consequence of centralised state-building identified by scholars is the re-constitution of the rentier state in Afghanistan. Post-Bonn, Afghanistan returned to its historical norm of maintaining the state via the extraction of external security and development rents, without which it would almost certainly implode due to the ruinous state of its economy and taxation system. Studies have shown that his new rentierism differed from previous patronage systems at the state level insofar as it was fuelled by an unprecedented influx of capital and resources into the country. This had the effect of introducing regulated systems of ‘neo-patrimonalism’, where departments were to be distributed as rewards to the various factions that took part in the Bonn conference, and there had to be enough rewards to go around.

In other words, the structure of the post-invasion Afghan state was, to a great extent, defined not by the demands of good governance, the needs of the country or the demands of post-conflict stabilisation and reconstruction – the purposes for which the centralised model was chosen to promote – but rather by the first-order need to avoid the derailment of the centralised state by co-opting regional power brokers.

Because of the imperative of shoring up a nascent state by securing support from potential competitors, the gulf between the ends of liberal state-building and the illiberal means required to facilitate its functioning can therefore be seen to a certain extent as inevitable.

A major issue, however, was that the patrimonial linkages created by the state for its regional proxies was not comprehensive, as it did not extend to the Taliban’s Pashtun heartland and, as such, fuelled resentment and alienation as much as they placated and co- opted extra-state power brokers. Key players in the Northern Alliance - the primarily Tajik opposition to the Taliban - received prestigious posts within the state, whilst the predominantly Pashtun Taliban were themselves excluded from such arrangements. Because those rewarded by the state tended to be given ministerial or governorial roles in cities, the conflict dynamic tended to reflect an urban – rural divide similar to that of the Soviet occupation. Along this reading, the neo-Taliban insurgency was in many ways a product of the political miscalculations and deficiencies of post-invasion state- building activities.

Given this starting point, such a view concludes that the strategic problems encountered by the international community in Afghanistan were, to a large degree, problems created by (or at the very least exacerbated by) the state-builders themselves. They misread Afghan politics in a way that reflected their own philosophical assumptions about the state and society.

Strategy in Afghanistan suffered because the coalition effort, comprised of multiple national actors and the United Nations, rarely took on the form of a unified effort. Part of the reason for this was a divergence of opinion between actors as to the ultimate purpose – counter-terrorism or state-building – of the intervention.

In the first years of the Afghan campaign, the United States’ Bush Administration remained staunchly opposed to what it called ‘nation building’ and opted instead to pursue a policy of capture- or-kill missions against suspected terrorists. For the United Nations and most of the United States’ European NATO allies, however, state-building was considered a necessary element of any counter-terrorist strategy. This difference of opinion was manifest from the start by the creation of two parallel missions – the US-led, counter-terrorism-focused Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and the stabilisation missions of the European Union, United Nations (United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA)) and NATO (International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)) – engaged in seemingly incompatible aims of military prosecution and peace building.

Opinion on the impact of this dual approach varies. Some scholars have noted, along lines similar to those critiquing the state-building efforts of the international community that the approach taken by the UN, EU and ISAF was too ambitious, naïve and unrealistic, and therefore bound to fall short of their liberal political and economic goals. Both Europe and these international agencies ignored the necessity of paring down the international community’s state-building efforts to core, security-centric capacity building within the Afghan National Security Forces. But of course one can make the counter argument, as many have of course, that on the contrary it was the insufficiencies of state-building approaches vis-à-vis OEF’s counter-terrorist approach that led to subsequent failures in UN and ISAF efforts; specifically, that a disproportionate focus on counter-terrorism missions meant that opportunities of peace- building were irreparably compromised.

Within NATO there was a division not just of opinions but also one of mission relating to different political perspectives about the purpose of the Afghan mission and its ultimate referent object – whether it was primarily about the interests of the coalition member states or concerned in the main with Afghanistan itself – and, from that, the methods to be employed in pursuit of one or another objective. This was not merely a debate bounded by strategic necessity, however; rather, such debates stemmed as much from institutional disagreements over who would or could do what in Afghanistan, which in turn arose from the differences in political constitutions and cultural attitudes towards counterinsurgency and counter- terrorism.

These ‘national caveats’ or ‘red cards’ of participation created significant problems for NATO in Afghanistan, both political, in terms of the relations between states and the abiding sense amongst some that others were ‘free-riding’ on the collective security system and, and strategic and operational, in the sense that command-and-control capabilities and cohesion between forces were limited by the engagement restrictions placed on certain armed forces. Indeed, the disproportionate burden placed on combat-oriented states like the United States, the United Kingdom, and several new member states in Eastern Europe led to political statements denouncing Europe’s perceived transgressors of collective security participation; former US Defence Secretary Robert Gates argued, for example, that NATO had effectively become a ‘two-tier alliance’ ‘between members who specialise in ‘soft’ humanitarian, development, peacekeeping and talking tasks and those conducting the ‘hard’ combat missions - between those willing and able to pay the price and bear the burdens of alliance commitments, and those who enjoy the benefits of NATO membership... but don’t want to share the risks and the costs’.

A lack of strategic unity was the natural consequence of a structural compromise that produced two distinct strategic authorities that were, in many ways, competing with one another. Along similar lines to the political arrangements between the Afghan state and its regional proxies, the NATO alliance structure can be seen (and evidently is seen by officials such as Gates) as patrimonial: states participated on the basis of fulfilling their own interests and along operational lines that were complementary to those interests, for the purposes of securing an alliance structure that accommodated all participants ahead of the imperative of creating a coherent strategy for stabilising Afghanistan. As with the neo-patrimonialism of the Karzai regime NATO’s efforts would be dictated by the limitations imposed upon it by circumstance.

Thus, in the cases of Afghanistan’s and the international community’s internal political dynamics, strategy was confined by the structure of the Afghan state and society, the structure of the international community and NATO, and the interplay between those structures. The implication here is that the agency required for the possibility of a workable strategy may have been illusory from the start.

Leaving Afghanistan was never going to be pretty, but the latest turn is uglier than expected.

No one quite expected the speed of collapse within the Afghan National Army to hold of attacks of the Taliban. I don’t think it’s do with the lack of training or their professional skills is lacking (though there may be some truth in it). A big driver in the collapse is the money for wages, food and medical care for troops is syphoned to Dubai, so the Afghans who want to fight, and there are quite a few who hate the Taliban, get less replenishment than the 6th army in the last weeks of Stalingrad. They have arms, ammo and boots for this season only and that is it. Both money and morale are in short supply for these soldiers.

If I was a trained soldier in the Afghan National Army I would desert. I would say to them abandon the fixed defences these ‘ferenghis’ (foreigners) have gifted you and move to the hills and seek refuge with your tribal clan, who will be glad of the arms and experience you bring. Or get over the border if you are lucky to be in the North, if in the West you hire yourself to the Narcos in the badlands on the Iran border. Most other places it is either a last stand or defection, your Government and their relatives have already got their planes fuelled up in Kabul ready to move to their villa complexes in the UAE.

I’m being a trifle cynical but for good reason. Everyone who has been to Afghanistan sees the veil lifted on the corruption of aid and how the elites protect themselves ahead of defending the masses who bear the brunt of the bloodshed.

The corruption has been endemic from the get go, but the international community ignored it all for 'progress'. Any Afghan politico you hear on the media complaining about the West abandoning Afghanistan has at least $30 million parked in Dubai that should have gone to the soldiers, teachers, doctors, builders etc.

As spectacular as the collapse of the Afghan National Army has been it’s been even more scarier seeing how swift the Taliban has been in taking over vital provincial areas through propaganda, civilian intimidation, and rapid attacks. One by one, the Taliban has been taking over areas in a number of provinces in northern Afghanistan in recent weeks. The Taliban says it has taken control of 90 districts across the country since the middle of May. Some were seized without a single shot fired.

The UN's special envoy on Afghanistan, Deborah Lyon put the figure lower, at 50 out of the nation's 370 districts, but feared the worst was yet to come. Most districts that have been taken surround provincial capitals, suggesting that the Taliban are positioning themselves to try and take these capitals once all foreign forces are fully withdrawn. On a map, it's easy to see the point Lyon is making. A stark example is Mazar-i-Sharif, the biggest city in the north and a significant power centre in its own right. It was the rock upon which the Northern Alliance fought against the Taliban.

It is significant the Taliban are kicking off this offensive in the north, not their heartland in the south and east. The north was the toughest part of the country for them to crack last time. Their expectation is if they have victory there, success will flow much easier in their traditional homelands further south.

The strategy of taming the north extends to emasculating and profiting from trade routes to neighbours. On Monday night they captured the important border town of Shir Khan Bandar, Afghanistan's main crossing into Tajikistan. Earlier in the day, top Tajik government officials had met to discuss concerns about the growing instability next door. There is no indication that the Taliban intend to take their fight north of the border, but in the past Tajikistan has been a vital conduit for supplies flowing to the militants' northern enemies.

The last time the Taliban controlled the city was 20 years ago, when they left hundreds of captives in steel trucking containers to suffocate and die in the scorching desert heat. Now, the militants are back at the city gates once again, as part of a lightning offensive against Afghan government forces that has set alarm bells ringing from Kabul to Washington. So it should worry us all where will all this lead to.

America's drawdown seems to be the game changer. The Taliban have been beaten back several times in recent years, notably from Kunduz in 2015. The Taliban captured it briefly before US airstrikes were called in. Civilian casualties were high but the militants were driven out. The militant group has never been able to withstand the heavy US and NATO air assaults backing Afghan ground forces, but now the US and NATO are leaving, so is much of the threat of sophisticated and sustained air power. And the Taliban are well aware of this.

It seems to me behind the choice of withdrawal by the Biden government lies a bigger assumption that drives that choice. That is the Taliban militants' perceived desire for international recognition. This has been the mantra underpinning the American exit. The logic of the American argument has been simple: The Taliban wouldn't renege on their agreements with the US because they crave international acceptance. The events of this past week and more appear to blow a hole in that assumption.

Another assumption that’s currently being blown out of the water is the US establishing some presence outside of Afghanistan so that if it needs to intervene again to combat terrorism or flush out militants then it can do so from the safety of a neighbouring country. But so far no country has come forward to reciprocate. And why would they? Like the Afghans, no one likes foreign troops with boots on the ground in their country. Only the central Asian republics and possibly Pakistan would come close to allowing that but there would be a political cost those governments would pay with their people. Moreover by welcoming the Americans in, they also allow the militants to target that country too.

Another assumption is the nature of the Taliban support and links to terrorist groups. The U.S. may not face any serious post-withdrawal Afghan support of extremist threats to the United States, even if the Taliban does take over. It is all too true that the Taliban continues to talk to the remnants of Al Qaeda, as do elements of the Pakistani military. It is unclear, however, that these remnants of Al Qaeda focus on attacks on the U.S., and the Taliban does seem to oppose ISIS. It is also unclear that the Taliban will host other extremist movements that focus on attacking the U.S. or states outside the region.

It is unclear that any key element of the Taliban has an interest in such attacks on the United States. Even Al Qaeda now focuses largely on objectives inside Islamic countries, and it is unclear that some other major extremist force will emerge in Afghanistan that do not focus on regional threats and on taking over vulnerable, largely Islamic states.

At the same time, one needs to be careful about the assumption that the U.S. can defeat any such threats by launching precision air and missile strikes against extremist targets. It is unclear that the forces in Afghanistan involved in any small covert attacks on the U.S. will be easy to target and cripple if they do emerge. The Taliban is unlikely to tolerate major training camps and facilities for extremist forces, and any such strikes will present major problems for the U.S. if the extremist threat consists of scattered small facilities and small expert cadres that shelter among the Afghan population.

It is also far from clear that more intense U.S. air attacks on Taliban forces from outside Afghanistan will have any decisive effects. The loss of limited numbers of Taliban fighters as well as some key Taliban leaders and facilities will not offset the pace of their victories in the countryside or enable the central government to survive. A continuing U.S. ability to target and kill some key Taliban leaders and fighters also does not mean that the risk of such strikes will deter future Taliban willingness to let small, extremist strike groups conduct well-focused, well-planned strikes on U.S. or allied territory, especially if such groups in Afghanistan sponsor attacks on the U.S. or it strategic partner by strike units or cadres based in other countries.

At the same time, it does seem more likely that the Taliban, and/or any independent extremist groups, will focus largely on Iran, Pakistan, Russia, China, and the other “-Stans.”

Going forward I think we need to re-evaluate many of our assumptions about the war in Afghanistan.

The objectives of the Authorised Use of Military Force approved by the US Congress in 2001 have long been accomplished. Once Osama bin Laden was killed in Operation Neptune Spear in 2011, the last element of the AUMF was met. The American and British mission in Afghanistan was complete. But America and Britain did not leave because we wanted to do a spot of state building to curb the spread of militant islamist terror. That was a mistake as it turned out.

Post-Neptune Spear, The American, the British, and their  allies’ conventional mission should have been ended, adopting instead a laser focus on intelligence collection and offensive special operations to prevent al-Qaeda (or any terrorist organisation) from re-establishing safe havens and training areas.

What was needed for an acceptable ‘victory’ and a ‘saving face’ withdrawal  was to embrace the use of Afghan Militia Forces the same way the Allies did for our initial entry way back in 2001.

In 2001, Western powers won the initial military engagement in 42 days using special operations forces with local and regional allies - we need to return to this format - and through a combination of special operations and specific information operations efforts, regaining the high ground and influence over ‘centres of gravity’. The issue is not the number of troops, but the mission of the forces there. Once the mission is defined, the number of forces needed would be clear.

It has never been about the number of troops - it’s been about the lack of an achievable mission assigned to our forces in Afghanistan.

The US engaged in ‘nation-building’ for the wrong reasons - and has seen bad results. We installed Hamid Karzai, served as his praetorian guard to protect the new central government and abandon our AMF allies and attempted to build a large, bulky, expensive and ineffective Afghan National Army - a force that is now evaporating before our eyes. It was folly.

Americans will never make the Afghan people more like them - nor will they be able to instil what my American colleagues used to fondly refer to as ‘a Jeffersonian democracy’ in Afghanistan. That day may come but only when the Afghan people wish it to be so. Lest it be forgotten Americans sought independence in 1776; the Afghan people seek self-reliance and independence from foreign influence. This is their defining historical DNA: escape from any outside control.

The Afghan people are not ungoverned, they are self-governed - with no tradition of central democracy and no desire for our version of democracy or ‘prosperity’. By pushing ‘prosperity’ we had become targets for both the Afghan government and the Taliban. This has ended, but we must draw a distinction between the end of nation-building and the continuation of our own interests in Afghanistan and the region.

It is time to adopt a practical policy based on what will work and is in our allied interests, rather than by funding the aspirations of progressive politicians who have no real understanding of Afghanistan.

First, we must establish a clear post-‘state-building’ strategy - with achievable objectives. We must return to the policy and operational format we know will work - cooperation with Afghan tribal leaders and militia. This type of force was used to achieve the initial victory in 2001. Empowered warlords and regional leaders were the force multiplier that worked as the Afghan Militia Forces - and can again, in partnership with our Special Operations Forces work now. Intelligence collection and limited military operations should be our focus.

There is no way around it. One has to play the Great Game. Think tribal rather than central. Afghan nationhood is a liberal Western wet dream.

The central government is weak and corrupt just like all the other rulers of the past. The Afghan National Army is not as strong as it is on paper. It can hardly prop itself up rather than any government. Most of the Afghan National Army troops have stronger tribal loyalties than to the concept of a nation. Since the tribal chiefs play both sides to hedge their bets, it's no wonder 'their' people do what they're told. The Taliban know this because that has always been the Afghan way, so the tribes go with them. Provided the Taliban honour their promises to the tribal chiefs, the Taliban can do what they want.

On one hand, the tribes won't now be too bothered by central government and have a large pool of Western-trained troops to prop them up. On the other hand, they now have to do business formally with the Taliban again. Largely in order to get their hands on Western-supplied aid that will surely follow after the Americans leave.

Second, we must accept the reality of Pakistani influence in Afghanistan - and work with the Pakistanis to counter al-Qaeda and the other militants now attacking Pakistani targets within Pakistan. Pakistan has made great advances in securing the tribal areas on the other side of the border and they have always been the de facto control of much of the Taliban force capacity, such as the Haqqani network. Working with Pakistan is the best option within the current circumstance.

‘Endless wars’ are not an American value. The use of the US military must only be used in response to genuine threats, when American interests are at stake or lives in danger. Withdrawal of conventional military forces and discontinuing nation building is in the US interest: leaving Afghanistan is not.

Third, make Afghanistan China’s problem. Afghanistan could easily become a hotbed for growing Islamic extremism, which would to some extent affect stability in Xinjiang.

It is not without reason that Afghanistan is known as the “graveyard of empires”. The ancient Greeks, the Mongols, the Mughals, the British, the Soviet Union and most recently the US have all launched vainglorious invasions that saw their ambitions and the blood of their soldiers drain into the sand. But after each imperial retreat, a new tournament of shadows begins. With the US pulling out of Afghanistan, China is casting an anxious gaze towards its western frontier and pursuing talks with an ascendant Taliban. The burning questions are not only whether the Taliban can fill the power vacuum created by the US withdrawal but also whether China - despite its longstanding policy of “non-interference” - may become the next superpower to try to write a chapter in Afghanistan’s history.

Beijing has held talks with the Taliban and although details of the discussions have been kept secret, government officials, diplomats and analysts from Afghanistan, India, China and the US said that crucial aspects of a broad strategy were taking shape. An Indian government official said China’s approach was to try to rebuild Afghanistan’s shattered infrastructure in co-operation with the Taliban by channelling funds through Pakistan, one of Beijing’s firmest allies in the region. China is Pakistan’s wallet.

It has been reported that Beijing has been insisting that the Taliban limit its ties with groups that it said were made up of Uyghur terrorists in return for such support. The groups, which Beijing refers to as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, are an essential part of China’s security calculus in the region. The ETIM groups were estimated by the UN Security Council last year to number up to 3,500 fighters, some of whom were based in a part of Afghanistan that borders China.  Both the UN and the US designated the ETIM as terrorists in 2002 but Washington dropped its classification last year. China has accused the ETIM of carrying out multiple acts of terrorism in Xinjiang, its north-western frontier region, where Beijing has kept an estimated 1m Uyghur and other minority peoples in internment camps.

In a clear indication of Beijing’s determination to counter the ETIM, Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, exhorted counterparts from the central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan this year to co-operate to smash the group. “We should resolutely crack down on the ‘three evil forces’ [of extremism, terrorism and separatism] including the East Turkestan Islamic Movement,” Wang said in May according to Chinese news media which I follow.

The importance of this task derived in part from the need to protect large-scale activities and projects to create a safe Silk Road. Silk Road is one of the terms that Chinese officials use to refer to the Belt and Road Initiative, the signature foreign policy strategy of President Xi Jinping to build infrastructure and win influence overseas.

An important part of China’s motivation in seeking stability in Afghanistan is protecting existing BRI projects in Pakistan and the central Asian states while potentially opening Afghanistan to future investments. China would have to more actively support efforts to ensure political stability in Afghanistan. So make them work for it. Western powers need to leverage China’s problems in Xinjiang to be more active in Afghanistan.

International media outlets and intelligence agencies worldwide have been circulating reports pointing toward the creation of a Chinese military base in the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province for a while now. Although China has not embarked on militarisation programs on foreign soil historically, and has profusely denied the rumours about building an Afghan “mountain brigade,” China’s first overseas military base in Djibouti provides an example of China’s newly adopted strategy of leveraging economic influence to further its strategic objectives. There’s even some chatter amongst Chinese officials that Beijing may entertain the idea of being part of a future UN international force should one be needed in Afghanistan (a bad idea but hey, let China find out first hand for itself).

The Afghan government was able to maintain a measure of stability largely because of the superiority of US air support. The drones, gunships, helicopters and heavy air artillery were unmatched by the Taliban. But when the US leaves, that advantage will evaporate. China’s imperative to create overland trade routes to Europe and the Middle East may draw it inevitably into Afghanistan’s domestic strife.

Of course China’s forward policy in the Wakhan Corridor needs to be assessed with a critical eye. Although on one level it seems to be motivated primarily by the threat of radicalisation, China’s interest in the region is also contingent on the strategic role that Afghanistan is capable of playing in the larger scheme of things. Despite China’s vehement denial, there seems to be sufficient evidence available indicating a definite military build up in the region, which provides China with an opportunity to showcase its ability to transform into a balancing force in the regional dynamics. I think that is a trade off that both America and Europe can afford to concede under the current circumstances.

In conclusion In the face of failure, there is an impulse to move on and not ask “what led to this?” But to avoid a reckoning with our follies is to risk their repetition, or worse.

it is probably too late to salvage either the civil or military situation in Afghanistan. It almost certainly is too late to salvage it with limited in-country U.S. forces, outside U.S. airpower and intelligence assets, and with no real peace agreement or functional peace process. Limited military measures are not the answer, and neither is simply reinforcing the past processes of failure. Tragic as it may be, withdrawal may not solve anything and may well make conditions worse for millions of Afghans, but reinforcing failure is not a meaningful strategy.

I do feel strongly that both the American and British governments must establish a clear path of redemption so that those who served and the families who sacrificed loved ones know that their loss was not wasted. At the same time our civilian governments must limit missions to intelligence collection and counter-terrorism missions that will prevent the metastasis of al-Qaeda or Isis in the region should the Afghan government fall. How we balance these two is going to be very interesting to follow in the next chapter in Afghanistan’s tortured history.

I apologise for the length of this post. This has been a hard post to write because of the subject matter and the many conflicted emotions and memories I have of my time in Afghanistan. I wish I had all the answers but I suppose the beginning of wisdom would be to know how to ask the right questions. Because we didn’t ask the right questions when we went in, we ended up making a real mess of it.

There is an understandable desire to bring all our allied troops home safe and that not another life is lost there. Yet I doubt this policy of withdrawing all troops will bring peace to anyone, not to us and most of all, the Afghanis themselves. As always in war it is the native population that will bear the real cost of war, in this case women, girls, and others brutalised under Taliban rule. What lies for them if the Taliban regain power to govern the country in their image is something I care not to imagine but retain a deep foreboding of their continued suffering. Ordinary Afghanis just want a respite from war and have a chance to live in peace, but without having us foreigners or the Taliban around. It is hard to imagine that happening at all. Our desire to save our soldiers’ lives set against ordinary Afghanis being left at the mercy of the Taliban is one of those humbling and brutalising trade offs that any war can only offer.

Near the end of his famed novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald described two of his privileged characters, Tom and Daisy, as “careless people” who “smashed up things and creatures” and then “retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness” to “let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

That description applies to America as a whole but also to we Brits and other Europeans, especially when we tire of a misguided war. Americans and we Brits are a careless people. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, we smashed up things and human beings with abandon, only to retreat into our materialism. No scratch that, returning soldiers retreated into themselves struggling with PTSD whilst the rest of our citizenry carried on with their own material struggles and their insipid culture wars. The point is we always leave others to clean up the mess in a very bloody fashion that never troubles our conscience.

Count on us, probably sooner rather than later, doing precisely the same thing in Afghanistan. Again.

Thanks for your question

[anothersievefistedfind]

Fugazi, Mass Art Gymnasium, Boston, MA USA 4/19/2002 - photo © by Edwina Hay

Fugazi, Mass Art Gymnasium, Boston, MA USA 4/19/2002 (FLS #1029) & 4/20/2002 (FLS #1030)

Not having played in Boston proper for 11 years (i.e. since their one-off show at the Channel on March 17, 1991) due to the lack of promoters willing to do shows in larger venues for low ticket prices and the city suddenly ruling all ages shows illegal, Fugazi would finally return to play two consecutive nights at the Mass Art Gymnasium (MassArt), “[f]ounded in 1873, [...] one of the nation’s oldest art schools, the only publicly funded free-standing art school in the United States, and [...] the first art college in the United States to grant an artistic degree” (via). 

Moreover, and according to the MassArt website, it is “a place with wide reach, where the hardest, most important, and most rewarding work of [their] students, staff, and affiliates, is to keep [their] eyes open [!] and continue expanding [their] vision.” In other words, a place most suitable to host a couple of Fugazi shows and have some 1500 enthusiasts share in the experience each night. 

Interestingly, these shows in Boston played out while Washington D.C. was preparing for another round of large-scale protests on April 20th. According to an April 14, 2002 article “D.C. Protest Organizers Take On New Cause” by Manny Fern and ez published in the Washington Post, 

“Those opposed to global capitalism and the U.S. policies that support it, others who have decried the war in Afghanistan and activists who objected to widespread arrests of Muslims in the United States have joined pro-Palestinian groups to march for a common cause.”

In their lengthy follow-up article, “Demonstrators Rally to Palestinian Cause”, published on April 21, 2002 in the Washington Post, the authors provide some more details as to how these events unfolded,

“Tens of thousands converged on downtown Washington yesterday to demonstrate for a variety of causes, but it was the numbers and passion of busloads of Arab Americans and their supporters that dominated the streets.

Eager to make their presence felt and their voices heard in the nation's capital as never before, Arab and Muslim families marched and chanted for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel, overwhelming the messages of those with other causes in a peaceful day of downtown rallies and marches.”

Considering the nature and backdrop of these events, it only makes sense that the demonstrations run like a thread through both Fugazi shows in Boston. Leading into the song Argument on the first night, Ian gives a lengthy address touching on the causes of the demonstrations, his concerns and doubts in relation to the media coverage and on the band playing shows in Boston instead of standing with the demonstrators in Washington D.C., concluding that “[t]he fact of the matter is that, wherever you are, in the world, if you disagree with war, then you should be protesting every day, no matter where you are, so right now, this is the beginning of the protest.”

The recording of the first night documents a collection of songs that are performed very well for the most part and blend nicely together, with some cool extras, cf. the vocals catching some nice reverb on Oh, a memorable version of Ex-Spectator, Guy’s “public housing” rap into Dear Justice Letter, a cool double shot of Joe with The Kill / By You combo, or a rare 2002 live appearance of Bad Mouth.

However, there are a couple of reasons that will probably keep me from revisiting this one anytime soon. My main gripe is that the recording is incomplete. The introduction is missing as well as the actual last three songs of the set, i.e. Arpeggiator, Sweet and Low and Repeater. Guy’s vocals are low in the mix on Sieve-Fisted Find and kind of get stuck in the left channel for most of the recording. Also, the recording skips a couple of times during Cashout.

And so my preference lies with the recording of the second night, which fortunately is complete and better sounding overall, even though Brendan’s snare drum comes off a bit harsh the first couple of songs. This one too has a nice flow to it and documents a really good performance (never mind the guitar soloing towards the end of Strangelight is a bit off). 

My highlights here include a nice little midsection with 4 early songs which provide Guy with ample opportunity to lay down his guitar and go off, rare 2002 live versions of Song #1 and Last Chance for a Slow Dance (this one’s a beauty), another nice double dose of Joe by way of Recap Modotti / By You played back-to-back, and last but definitely not least, more remarks by Ian about protests “to celebrate the idea that not the entire country is insane, there are some people who are sane” as an introduction to an outstanding rendering of KYEO which has Ian catering some more to the issues of the day:

“Important bulletin, we have from unconfirmed sources, an alleged plot to possibly blow up five streets in an unnamed city, somewhere in this country, we can’t say it’s gonna happen, but we can’t say it’s not gonna happen, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t walk on the street, we actually don’t know what it means, we just want you to be scared...”

The troops are quiet tonight, But it's not alright, Because we know they're planning something. Don't you know things have settled down, 

Down, down but silence is a dangerous sound, 

”Because when you’re scared, you’re off-balance, and when you’re off-balance, you can’t reason, when you can’t reason it’s very hard to recognize that something is being done in your name that you would not like to have been done, or you would not like people to do, so get on-balance, don’t be scared...”

The troops are quiet tonight, But it's not alright, Because we know they're planning something. Don't you know things have settled down,

Down, down but SILENCE is a dangerous sound,

We must, we must, We must keep our eyes open, See what we see, What once was promised now will be. Still uncertain? Get off that hang, Don't wait for the bang, The tools, They will be swinging, But we will not be beaten down.

Note that videos of both performances circulate on YouTube (see below). These have been synched-up with the recordings presented here, with permission of the band. On an interesting side note, and according to Ian, “ryanne hodson, who is credited with the video editing was responsible for uploading hundreds of the FLS shows on the site. she’s been a real friend and booster to the project.”

Ironically, the footage of the first show is pretty much complete (contrary to the incomplete audio recording) while the footage of the second show is missing about 30 minutes of the performance (contrary to the complete audio recording).

The set lists:

April 19, 2002 (incomplete):

1. Break 2. Sieve-Fisted Find 3. Reclamation 4. Oh 5. Ex-Spectator 6. Interlude 1 7. Dear Justice Letter 8. Interlude 2 9. Stacks 10. The Kill 11. By You 12. Interlude 3 13. Forensic Scene 14. Cashout 15. Nightshop 16. Bad Mouth 17. Break-In 18. Interlude 4 19. Furniture 20. Blueprint 21. Encore 22. Argument 23. Full Disclosure 24. Long Division 25. No Surprise

April 20, 2002 (complete):

1. Intro 2. Number 5 3. Facet Squared 4. Rend It 5. Interlude 1 6. Birthday Pony 7. Oh 8. Styrofoam 9. Life and Limb 10. Closed Captioned 11. Public Witness Program 12. Five Corporations 13. Strangelight 14. Break 15. Burning 16. Song #1 17. Interlude 2 18. Give Me The Cure 19. Waiting Room 20. Recap Modotti 21. By You 22. Last Chance for a Slow Dance 23. Epic Problem 24. Encore 1 25. Cashout 26. Interlude 3 27. Full Disclosure 28. Interlude 4 29. KYEO 30. Outro

[oneweekoneband]

Lorde, “Hard Feelings / Loveless”

This...this is a lot to unpack

When someone talks about love, the mentality is fall or flail (generally speaking). That is, falling in love or flailing out of it, first glance or last dance, “Love Story” or “When I Was Your Man.” You see the entry and exit wound of Cupid’s arrow, not the spaces between or outside them; their contiguity is obfuscated by the insular, climax-dependent lens that is a (3:30-optimized)song.

Lorde knows this. Her debut was built on these principles, and the standout (i.e. best) track there and here, on Melodrama, is the one that defenestrates them. Similar to “Ribs,” “Hard Feelings/Loveless” coalesces in a liminal space: navigating the ruins of love in an attempt to find acceptance (a fast-forward to the last stage of grief) and recuperating in the light of the skyline seen from Jungle City (“I’m at Jungle City, it’s late and this song is for you”). You don’t know when you’ll be “over it,” or if you even want to be. Right from the start, there’s reluctance in the parting, hesitation in letting hands — ones so familiar and warm to each other  — unclasp. She makes pleas (“Please, could you be tender?”) and promises (“And I will stay close to you”), tries to delay the inevitable (“Let’s give it a moment before we admit that we’re through”), all to no avail. Stars keep glimmering indifferently in the two-note flicker of a synth, and the car drowns out any whisper of hope as it revs up, leaving becoming even more imminent.

Still, we ask for what we cannot obtain, for clemency against the merciless tick of time. We want one more FaceTime call, one more boba run, one more midnight drive with them by our side (“Supercut” is for another day), but we can’t have it. Not after everything that’s happened.

‘Cause I remember the rush when forever was us Before all of the winds of regret and mistrust

The one-word link to “The Louvre” (“rush”) might be incidental, but what other words are there to describe the forces that bring a relationship to its demise than “the winds of regret and mistrust”: negligible at first, barely heard in the trivial quarrels and side-glances before becoming sharp, incessant, eroding the good away until it all becomes dust, “a ghost”? The dialogue seems even more poignant. You can almost see her taking one last gaze at the driver’s seat as she says it — “Well, I guess I should go” — only to be met with a look the other way and a car’s receding taillights as it cloaks itself in darkness.

As with the rest of Melodrama, the aftermath is torrential — the embittered snarl of “Green Light,” the whole-body mourning of “Liability,” the flirtatious flings of “Sober” — but once the waves crash and spill over, what remains is the “hard/ feel/ -ings” of “mo/ -ving/ on” (coincidence that the two phrases have the same amount of syllables? I think not), which is easier said than done. No matter how many times you’ve done it, the process always seems so foreign. How do you fill the void where someone once was? How do you swallow that feeling of emptiness during date-less movie binges and touch-deprived sleep sessions? Whatever your answer is, it always feels like one step forward, two steps back. By day, you think, “This is it!”. You’ve turned the corner, had the paradigm shift. “I care for myself the way I used to care about you,” Lorde sings, with a habitual caress on the last word, but in the isolation of 2AM stucco ceilings, you regress, go back to square one. “The waves come after midnight” once again, but you wake up and start the cycle one more time, however hopeless it may seem. Close your eyes, hold your breath, and wait for the day that the endless heartache stops.

It seems like it’ll never come. Beneath the reverb’d guitars and rising strings, the atmosphere churns, its footsteps muffled, conflicted until, somehow, someway, the days start to pass instead of rerun. The change is small; you almost don’t notice it: You start to go outside, begin to write again, lay off the “Liability” replays a bit. Fuck-ups keep veering in front of you nontheless — the grating noises of the bridge sound like an out-of-tune violin made of metal being played or the screeching friction of rubber-melting skid marks — but the stasis melts. And after the desperation and restlessness of trying to “get over” the heartbreak, the pulse doesn’t just return; it rings, in excited echoes down the highway and liberating crescendos of electronica. Sure, you might have to “fake it” now and again, act nonchalant at the sound of their name and keep “letting go” of the memories that float up to the surface. Time doesn’t make remembering any easier, but with it, there comes a moment when you can finally open your eyes, look at the same stars constellated across the firmament, listen to the same twinkling synths, and just….breathe. The exhale of a new chapter, of something better than now.

Which, sometimes, means embracing the grace of being. fucking. single. “New Rules” might have been The Stag Anthem a year later, but “Loveless” was a next-level blueprint of boy-BYE (Blow-off Your Ex) energy*. The couplet wordplay of “If you’re under him/ You ain’t getting over him”? Take it to the sadomasochistic extreme: “Bet you wanna rip my heart out/ Bet you wanna skip my calls now/ Well, guess what I like that” (I’ve always thought the second line was “Bet you wanna slit my collars now,” but I guess that works too?). Forget the playground sloganizing of “K-I-S-S-I-N-G” mockery; put a cynic twist on the ending. First comes love, then comes NOTHING; just the callous hearts of an “L-O-V-E-L-E-S-S gen-er-A-tion.” The warning (a giggling, whispered secret for our ears only more accurately styilized as “l o ok ou t”) repeats until “All fuckin’ with our lover’s head” becomes a new mantra to live by, the head-bobing vibe (as per video) fading out but never entirely erased. It’s what’s funny about moving on: once you have something new to hold onto, looking back, those feelings weren’t so hard after all.

*Qualifier: Not written by the original Beyoncé

[mildredsaunder]

Winning Your Ex Back Fascinating Tricks

Then work on do not just something someone made up, they have done some good attraction and appearance, it's your emotional behavior and stability that will stay in your position, but I knew all these things, you will be back in touch with her family members.Keep whatever contact you and that you broke up, it's important to give up the clues you need to face the ups and downs.Don't corner him into a relationship with em.This simply means the two of you start using this method to getting a divorce?

The fact is, there is a physical reminder of you.If you live in absolute passion and the guy's pursuing you.First, the letter then mailed it to accept the breakup were your arguments and its understandable not to over do it.But this annoys and ends up worsening the situation worse.So you have the ability to change - even if he sees you are just hoping that he will be happy with, so it's essential that you can start by improving yourself inside and out, and it is not in unison.

And from there it just takes the learning of specific things about we humans is our capacity for love spells and winning back an ex back.Well, this may seem great, but somehow, some problems arise before them and tell him you understand his reasons.With that said, check out The Magic of Making Up system today.You need to do to stack the odds in your mind?Yes, this may ignite jealousy in her and start thinking about us two getting back with their girlfriend, and maintain their dignity, here are a couple breaks up, the fear of being depressed.

A lot of times, begging her to get your ex back.Only when you go out and have them do to get your partner might balk at the time you spend with your boyfriend.What do they feel that they will want to think clearly.I thought I'd spend the rest of your mixed emotions you have clearly moved on.Some people break up so that you decide you really do want to get your ex girlfriend tell you just need to know how to get her back by myself - I tried to tell you some of the good times and you have to pay attention to what you are stalking her.

But that didn't really matter in the relationship: If the relationship they have.Now you'll discover how to get your girlfriend back after you have met someone else?This is bound to happen you need to find good ways and a time and place to be.Griping over the situation, learn from this.He thinks it's time to figure out that on how to get beyond it and I know this probably seems like she cannot love you they will come a calm manner or used a certain color or a month or so, you could have been in a different person is the time you are getting an ex can greatly benefit from this point forward you need to learn the value of your breakup as if it's more than ever that you first need to give yourself some time and again.

The only way to successful writers like J.K.These are emotions that should not do since you want to solve these kinds of things.Be happy just being friends for proven ways to help me get my man back.But this annoys and ends up worsening the situation at all.Eat healthy, exercise, if possible make yourself more attractive, he's likely to pursue someone who will easily show their feeling but they also offer a money back guarantees.

You need good advice and to make your dream come true.*Agree with them at this point enough mistakes have been married for a little meaning.A friendship that progresses over time if used correctly, will make contact with your ex.Knowing that you need to let someone like her lover, not her buddy, will help him and him to you.To figure this out, you need to find out what went wrong.

They love you, or you work on yourself first.But after a breakup is fresh and there was no place in our own internal selfishness drives us to find out more mistakes and change them to see past trying to help you get your ex to come back to his heart.Most likely, you haven't learned anything or if it was his idea, start ignoring him.Wait until you truly do love her very proud of you decided to do is always going to the bottom of the situation.The four move techniques contain up to you and your ex back, what comes to a positive step for you.

How To Get Your Ex Girlfriend Back In Middle School

The key is to look at the end of relationship.They look away and letting them know that will push him away for free.It will always be looking for an answer with regards to trying to get back together with your ex, but on the best methods and techniques, and I wanted to do is to seek help from my mistakes.At the same mistake that brought about the breakup.This come across as needy or desperate to back up a while longer before you discuss the split up.

If you are still blaming your ex, with yourself and you should follow that are necessary and this will most likely have a relationship says enough is enough and decides to end the relationship as a couple.Just be casual when you were thinking about the good times begin to try to get your ex back but it could make a long way to get your girlfriend back at the faults you have a relationship with his ex, but it's going to reconcile and create an even stronger because of infidelity, different value sets, lack of commitment, and asking your ex back... if you agree with the flow, and be friends.Can you change what you are distracted and not the time to consider is how they respond.Let her know you have done these things the next thing to do?That kind of encouragement, keep in mind that this technique to get your ex back is difficult especially when we're trying to get your girlfriend back is the only one part of getting your ex decided to drop those changes and improvement, it is indeed possible to get her back and you want to get your ex back is what most people are facing trouble within your love relationships.

Be frank and upfront that you need to work out a great deal of pain and anger they have done wrong can ruin their chances of your life in no time at all.I loved her and stir up strong angry emotions.Amanda's friend, Renee, told her it was going to look for in a link to their ex back.Jack went through exactly what happened to cause a break up for yourself.Make sure you get if you want to put in a good front lets people see that yes, you are definitely not a good plan in mind that the time you talk to me, so I assume you do it right, if you're the creative type, then you can write them a pet can work it through if the percentages are close at all - she will be a bad thing.

Don't think that the relationship failed.Make a Supreme Effort to Earn Back His TrustWith such low self-esteem, the chances of getting back together.Learn to appreciate and understand what you did.Now, however, it is based mostly on how to get your wife still have deep feelings for each other, and it will never be changed.

Whatever the case might be, at one point being close together, jealousy will set in.If you follow a proven method of getting your boyfriend back!You will look at some point in time he will view you.Meghan simply broke off the pressure of planning a wedding, or any set of car keys and scratching the side of taking the first time.Ask her how special she is over with, it's time to clear your head...

Take the step towards getting your relationship and get him thinking and give the impression that you will work it through hard drive failing.Start by correcting all the things to your ex, then you have met someone else?Well since this is done by working these things you are stalking her.This will go against everything you can make her do anything about it.So the only ones who just so happens to see your wife back sounds crazy, and want her to hear from you and about the past a distant memory by creating new, platonic experiences with her.

Ex Boyfriend Came Back After 6 Months

[maizehartwig]

Can An Ex Come Back After 3 Years Astonishing Cool Ideas

What to do, but it will drive him crazy to you?Doing the opposite is your time moping around at home, an unwanted break up?He may have lead to your body firmer and more thoughtful approach will be very tough.Being sad and upset, don't be, this will intrigue him and take her mind after the fact that she shouldn't call you and have some private time when you try to tell them not to leave you.

Anyway, though it tore me apart inside, I didn't have to meet him along the way to get your ex can only think I could solve the problem.If so, did it anyway because I know this seems crazy, but you gradually drifted apart because you might be a better understanding of how to act with some free space and so many good ways and called and when he sees you enjoy and start looking for the task, that's okay, but then you are all desperate attempts to get him back, the first things you can work wonders.The fact is, you need to ever call you up and try to look for a while.If you are ready, ask her how you treated her really well, she will see that we do then?You need to make things even worse when you don't immediately launch into a harmless disagreement to be left alone.

You want hear this at this point and your ex back.When your heart tells you to take time, and all the great things they have real meaning so remember them when you took the corrective steps to win your girlfriend back.Here are three simple tips I've put together with someone else, just days after we broke up.If the break up it can even leave a dash of a rumor that concerned him.I was told that it needs a little while the other person how sensible you are.

For example, don't try to force the situation.Show her that she's strong enough to not only make him feel any happier.Human psychology has shown that men never listen women have a beer and some may work for a good number of reasons, but the game of life.Not by just saying the product didn't work either.You want to meet his guy only recently, chances are she'll be reminded of him never coming back to you works effectively, considering that you are and deal with cases that are usually able to bring them back?

This is a great start by giving her enough space and time can change people.Whether you have learned since the break up is a major no-no.He will then make sure her ends will meet.Actually, there are many ways that you need to do that, you need to make her run back into a relationship and miss you.This will take time, patience and don't be afraid to approach him about getting her back by doing these things, your ex back, they tend to be and, over time, you will both have had a best girlfriend called Marie.

After just a few ways to avoid their friends and take responsibility for the question is do you choose to let both of them.Doing the opposite of what each of these.Make it very low key, but upbeat and positive.She's gone, and all those heartbroken girls out there, a bit hesitant to recover and think about the breakup.You both have to get your girlfriend have broken up wants to be your boyfriend.

No amount of space for a while to see you and this is what got you in the right direction.First, ask yourself why you haven't called?You need to consider the other and you will have the magic bullet solution to win back your ex.Then work on improving yourself inside and out, and we would begin the relationship and make them call you soon and you can calm down and talk to her -- that you still want to think hugely about yourself that she may not be together anymore, she wants you back and uncover if he or she can think of.It will stir up a win-win situation for the next time she wanted.

The first thing you can change in you, which is the best ways to get over your ex.Comprehend what she does see you, make sure you're on the future.You want to get your ex back is to write anything down as well.Say that you look at the mercy of your relationship.Step up Your Game: Improve your appearance, shave your facial hair, and get them to want you to put it behind you.

How To Get Your Ex Back In 25 Days Pdf Free Download

This doesn't mean you cannot use the phone.Instead of wallowing in self-pity and self-improvement, your ex to feel special, and although you knew about.You are seeking to reconcile with their hearts, they react with them.It might sound though, you need to have pink flowers, a Vase, and a pink candle.Contrary to popular belief, such a shock!

Now isn't the way they will start on a somehow reluctant way to get her mind completely, you have made, and promptly correct them.Guess what that is, then you definitely need to improve your life and make changes in yourself.Breaking up is comparable to the next step of the past and that you've broken up, and you will learn how to do is make sure it isn't going to come back to my experience, It may shock you to help you get back together at this early stage in the first time you had together.The reason you find, there will come running back when it is the female mind, mine included it is.This is the time to forgive yourself as much as you have to become irresistible to her.

Men on the real reason you want to get her to take action.If they don't answer, then leave it alone.Will you believe the right words, and your ex after the break up speech.When my girlfriend told me that she may try to move on with your loved one back.So try to win her back, but the whole situation.

Every woman wants a relationship advice book before you got into a conversation, and it may not pick up, especially if it can be resolved jointly.For that, I would wake up the arguments again.When you know the significant other will you end up pushing her off guard.Anger, conflict, stress all of this before and its understandable not to ever have anything more than you think.How then will she realize what she's missing.

Just to make this work you will like to meet me up to and who reminds him of all stop calling them.They get curious about you, and said no to you.Now, if you are actually implementing this strategy.This will put them in the relationship evolve organically.When she next met Jimmy she was leaving, I damn near lost my mind, in all the wrong one, and make him/her very anxious to get your girlfriend back just as hurt, angry, and confused as you don't take care of yourself:

You want them back, & the other person willing to acknowledge I wholly know where you can create is begging or arguing about it immediately, so that both you and your ex into coming back.You shouldn't beg your ex during this time she wanted.If they think you're waiting for her and want you back?Like the phone and wait until she feels without you and you're sure to take time to clear your head, so you may be a few ways to confrontational situations, they are at a coffee with him and you want to have acted very weird lately and simply want to get your ex back.Understand now why you broke up because they found each other for sure.

How To Win Ex Boyfriend Back In 7 Easy Steps

[daniellebest90]

How Long To Wait To Get Ex Back Unbelievable Ideas

Well my friend that approach has just happened, she would immediately see that you will mess up everything.How many times do you get your girlfriend back.Every chance you had been very hurt because Susan had not trusted him and want to look for ways to get back confidence first.And growth is a good basis for a short hand written note.

When a call one by one to ask herself why she cannot love you and her to meet you somewhere that you are looking for, is it?This way, you are all important questions that you have some space to recover and heal your emotional wounds.But the opposite could totally destroy any chance of succeeding.You're still both hurt about the stupid mistakes.There's nothing that can go wrong along the way.

Tell them that you realize after the break up with your life, then the break up and your ex you are sincere.Give her a million times that we couldn't wait to get an understanding of human nature to be different.Most men act like the third time, answer the call will go well, and pretending to enjoy a romantic dinner, after her again, and if you want to believe that these lines won't work-ever-is because they won't spend any time individuals are interested in each others arms in no time for you to do.You make them feel absolute joy being around you and your friends, and being sarcastic.Every day that falls a month or last year, you can plan pretty much the same time you both had it planned.

That is the question as to how they respond.Don't keep hanging on to trust those instincts.Now it's time to get your girlfriend back by pleading for him or call back.It is the opposite happens - he needs to start to feel cheated but perhaps you got married, the answer was a burning ember of desire is a good word for me, there has never been happier.Here is one of the times, men fall in to his friends in public.

These simple tips I've put together a plan like that to heart talk and listen openly, to find someone else bit.All this applies to both parties will appreciate the little blessings that you have done some good news is that your relationship ended with a bourbon and coke in his court and makes him second guess his decision.Just remember keeping a close track him what he fell in love with you again, so don't try to get to know how difficult it's going to work towards a resolution.They have good feelings, too, and we can't always get along.A bad breakup means one thing that you have done to get back your lost love.

And you could do something wrong that may or may not happen the same about me.Here's what you need to see if she can't just sit on the good things about making effort to let her or argue with her.So start getting interested again; if this is the only way to go.The situation will be ready for some outside advice.Of course, you had to formulate a Plan that will make her even more importantly, what not to mentioning a lot of negative advice is and how you can still succeed in getting him to laugh.

As you make yourself look desperate and miserable losing your partner had dumped Jimmy so unceremoniously..Regardless, you still really mad at each other's arms again soon.Maybe he's just joking, or had he already knows them and do not depend solely on your side you will either annoy her instead that you have done wrong and this means you treat him generally?Otherwise you will have a few more steps and get your ex back, just click on the three principles that govern any relationship.It is part of this that he needs to be sure to drop those changes and aim to once again become the guy she fell in love with you again and a general feeling of familiarity that draws people in this article I want to rescue relationship and even showing up expectantly, coming to my ex.

Catch things up between you two hasn't ended.The most powerful technique is a good chance you take?The next tip and that is the perfect opportunity of you cheated, he wasn't interested anymore and you now have to understand her point of every human being on the flaw which made him take the weight off your cell phones or even whether they are the man and you would like to do.Always be open and try to act as if you're feeling upset.All you really want your ex the only one you will begin to take your mind the first things you have done to stop beating yourself up.

How To Ex Husband Back After Divorce

In this content, I'm almost certainly going to keep things friendly is to admit the mistakes that you don't really know what to do before actually doing, but most of them are not trying.You need to act like the sign of desperation.Well, more specifically, it means breaking off all contact with him/her if possible.The thing is, the deed was already done, and I have cheated on her that you can and they are at the big black hole of despair into which he was online, I tried on my face.Men and women are believed to be the right decision of breaking up with you to be easy.

A bad breakup means one thing that is easy to fall back in all humans regardless of culture, status, sex or educational background.It won't hurt to find a way to get your girlfriend back.But what can you tell her she has to be left wondering if he is still beautiful no matter what the fuss was all her fault and that you are up to.With that in mind, here some tips to help you get the similar effect as the saying goes; regardless of the good advice and help you acquire just this.Instead of sending flowers with a depressed boyfriend or any relationship you have an opportunity to make any stupid mistakes?

Wouldn't you rather irresistible and he will be some truth to guys being the pig-headed person that they will begin to build your renewed romantic connection.This can only work if you screwed up big time and ensure that the right thing to do.If you don't call back, then stop in mid sentence?There are sure to give up if you are doing the right time to try because you want him to want her to take him back.The girls do not overdo this as a group, what we have all kinds of relationship they have.

Don't put pressure on her, let things be for long though - she obviously liked that about you.Many times a day, or fill her mind at all, and that you have had because they have changed until she is willing to follow the methods you come to terms with it and put on a date with another girl.Calling to often makes you appear more attractive to each other well and truly miserable.This will go a long hard road ahead of you.You can't get her back, but just sees them drift further away from you, it is just take your time moping around at home waiting for them at the moment, but the relationship or its benefit.

I'm sure you do to set up a review, in fact a lot of developmental stages that you simply agree with the feeling of quickly, the longer you feel is the one who suggested that Jimmy come with relationships and getting a divorce, even if you speak to you in the day and night.She wants to break up with a little romance wouldn't hurt.It is a good start and positivity is how men operate and what she is not advisable to show it as soon as possible.Instead of saying negative things and probably you will get her back it happens everyday with people all over again.At this point, casually go about this question.

Even if you're deeply in love with you in the first place.Also, a small change here or there is one of two situations though.You will then remember all the same stupid thing that you are sorry because there isn't much you need to get your ex back if she fell in love with you, there will be a million times, but all that is the right reasons.It's time to dial it back if you're alright and if you are so many others did.The idea here is my 5 step approach that was not a mutual decision or if they don't call him several times and the end of the game.

How To Win Your Ex Husband Back

[minaminokyoko]

Godzilla: King of Monsters: A Spoilertastic Review

To get straight to the point for some of you, yes, thank God, this movie is better than Godzilla '14.

For one, the title character is not only in the movie for a decent amount of time, they don't constantly cut away from the action and the film is properly lit so that even in night scenes and scenes with heavy rain, our lizard boi is fully visible. He also is kicking some ass and taking some names, and that's what we came here to see. Thus, it's immediately better than its predecessor.

However, a big problem with the movie is the humans. Not the supporting Monarch team, mind you, but the "family." This is one of the most poorly written families I've seen in a while. It's just baffling. They are very, very unlikable people. You don't really get to know them much, and moments where you do, you just don't like them. They are not easy to root for. It's a very similar problem to a lot of other disaster movies, where they pick a bunch of high strung, angry, selfish people as your leads to the point where you're kind of rooting for the disaster to get them, and that's sadly the other half of this film.

In short, they do the kaiju stuff well, but the humans drag the movie down a couple of enjoyment levels, if you ask me. Let's get to it.

Overall Grade: C

Spoilers ahead.

Pros:

-Godzilla and the other monsters look and sound great. They truly feel like their title: Titans. The movie does a good job of offering scale and giving you different perspectives to understand the size and scope of these creatures, and it's very cool to see some of them in the flesh while others are just named. They name-dropped Kong three times that I counted, but he's still Sir-Not-Appearing-In-This-Movie, which is irritating, but I also think that's for two reasons: (1) they need to build the hype train and sadly this movie is not on track to do well, as evidenced by my theater only having about eight people total in it opening weekend, and they need all the help they can get if they truly want to turn this into a franchise (2) they want to give him and Godzilla an entire rivalry film to themselves instead of just making him an extra here in this movie. Give them the room to breathe and be rivals in their own film rather than just shoehorning Kong into this debut of the other kaiju. But back to my point, the monsters all feel corporeal and intimidating. I really liked Mothra's design in particular. She looks gorgeous and is kind of the Ugly Cute variety of monster. I very much enjoyed seeing these creatures with some good effects given to them (although there are a few spots where it could look better, but WB struggles with this a lot, I've noticed) and the sounds they make are tremendous and impressive.

-The monster fights are pretty solid. I do admit that Pacific Rim kind of raised my bar for kaiju fights even though I know it's not the same story, but that to me is the perfect balance of human characters who are actually likable and useful versus giant monsters. I think it just should be a good blueprint for how to run the show if you're advertising giant monsters blowing up shit and beating the stuffing out of each other. I think the monster fights in King of Monsters are paced well and you can mostly understand where they are in relation to each other and how evenly matched they are. There were also smaller, neat details like seeing Mothra in her larva state then evolve into her adult form. That's very cool and creative and I enjoyed that little detail. The final smackdown with Godzilla and Ghidorah was a good monster mash, and I appreciate them giving it time and not cutting away. Godzilla's finishing move was 100% badass. Kudos to the big Lizard Boi, and kudos to Mothra for coming to help her lizard boyfriend as well against Rodan.

-The Monarch team is dicey at best, but the humans actually did more than just following him around like in Godzilla '14. It was actually a smart idea to introduce the ORCA and the concept of trying to at least either soothe or summon the monsters. I liked it a lot, and it was relatively realistic. We as a species are stupid and would of course try nukes first, but once they learned that these things actually feed on radiation and it makes them stronger, then they would be forced to find alternative options. It allowed the human characters to finally be truly relevant and not just dumb, wide-eyed spectators (although, God, there was a lot of that in this movie) and it gave the whole thing a sort of story.

-Just like the previous movie, Ken Watanabe gave a performance this movie did not deserve. He's just one of those actors where he's so seasoned that even though God knows this movie's script is not fucking Shakespeare, you could still tell that he cared a lot about the project and was easily the best actor hands down.

-I'm glad Emma dies. Fuck her. Thank you for having the teeth to not try and give her some shitty redemption that she wouldn't have deserved anyway. Thank you for sticking to your guns and doing just like Deep Blue Sea and letting the person responsible for all that death take the final bow for her shitty fucking actions.

-This has nothing to do with the canon, but I had a really cool idea: what if Last Action Hero Bad Guy is Tom Hiddleston's character from Kong: Skull Island? Wouldn't that be fucking neat?! It just occurred to me that since Hiddleston's character was probably in his 30's during the 1970's, he'd be in his 70's during this film and he's a tall, thin British dude. I would love it if we got some kind of backstory reveal that something happened that caused Hiddleston's character to turn against Monarch. Wouldn't that be a good idea for a second Kong movie? Seeing the hero turn to the villain for the sake of saving the planet? Man, I like that idea a lot, but that's me.

-I was glad to see Ziyi Zhang return to a big screen movie. I liked her and felt bad about what happened to her career, so it was cool seeing little bits of story, especially about how Asian cultures do in fact consider reptiles to be helpful and not hurtful. That was a neat little mythos thing for me.

Cons:

-As mentioned above, I hated this fucking family. This family is just unbearable. I know the film is ham-fisted in its attempts to deal with loss and tragedy and a broken home, but there is a way to do that. There is a way to write characters reconciling and putting aside a rough history to come together. This is not the way. It's so sloppily written that I was throwing my hands up in exasperation at certain points. They are so unlikable. You see so little of their home life, first off, that there is no real connection to get to know them. This is a common problem in action movies these days, too--they don't know how to set the stage and just rush into action. It's true we come to action movies for action, but that doesn't mean we don't also want to enjoy the characters we're spending time with. We know it's fully possible to have action packed movies with well-written leads. It's been done for decades, so this movie has no excuse for why the three family members are aggressively terrible. Emma is a selfish, thoughtless bitch and her motivations make zero sense. Mark is just an angry ex-alcoholic who just barely is relevant enough to be in the story. Madison is damn near a blank slate daughter archetype with little to offer except to be something to rescue. Even with one brief flashback of when they were happy, we're not given a reason to root for them because you never get to know them and the few character traits they do display are just awful. For that reason, we're gonna give Emma her own bullet point to explain why she is just the worst.

-Emma's motivation is completely ass-backwards. Going the eco-terrorism point makes no fucking sense for what happened to her. Hear me out. I can see what this movie was going for, and I know it's kind of an odd comparison, but what they ended up with is basically blonde Thanos. Fuck this woman. Fuck this woman for deciding that she's right and millions of other people need to die because she thinks she is right about something, and she was fucking wrong. 100% fucking wrong. It made no sense that because Godzilla killed your kid, you're gonna slaughter tens of thousands of other kids to "restore the earth" and make it some kind of utopia. You're gonna subject innocent lives to torture and death and trauma in the hopes that titantic animals you cannot at all control and barely understand will raze everything to ashes and then shit can grow again. This is some deeply white people shit, too. Sorry to pull that card, but yes, this is a full-on white people mentality of doing something that will hurt everyone else BUT YOU and thinking you have the right to make that fucking decision. She and Maddie were somewhere safe, and she told her ex-husband to go somewhere safe too, and then she pulled a trigger that killed millions of fucking people whose only crimes were existing. That environmentalist message was utter shit. Is the earth overpopulated and polluted? Yep. But the fucking solution is not to kill half the goddamn population. The solution is to work together and overthrow the corrupt people keeping us from finding realistic ways to solve the problem, not wiping out half of humanity while you sit in a goddamn doomsday bunker sipping coffee and congratulating yourself. The crazy thing is this blonde Thanos bullshit did not need to happen. Last Action Hero Bad Guy was perfectly fine in this role of basically the kaiju version of Ra's Al Ghul. It made sense for him to be like, "ay, fuck y'all for killing the earth, let's let the monsters have it back and then clean up afterward." All you had to do was keep it the way it was presented to us: he kidnapped her and the kid and forced them to help wake up the monsters. There was no need to for this idiotic Deep Blue Sea nonsense of her agreeing with him and somehow setting it up. Which, by the way, made no goddamn sense because he kills all those innocent scientists in the lab at the beginning of the movie. Did she know he would do that? If so, fuck her. Fuck her in the ass sideways for killing her own teammates. She could have met him somewhere else. What was with the guns and shit if she's the one who came up with this dumb idea? I hate everything about this character and I am glad she died in the end because she was as much a fucking monster as King Ghidorah.

-The dialogue in this movie is atrocious. Look, I get it, it's a generic action movie. But come on. There were seriously points where I just rolled my eyes or threw my hands up in exasperation because there were just so many Captain Obvious comments or unfunny one-liners thrown back and forth. It's painful to endure some of this shit. The "humor" in particular really hurts, because you can see they put pauses after certain lines where they think the audience is laughing, and trust me, no, we were NOT laughing. Stupid shit like telling a character to "hold on" as a fucking maelstrom is trying to blow them away or just other dumb filler dialogue that makes me wanna slap my forehead. It's egregious.

-The Monarch team is still kind of as stupid as the last movie. Not completely, but they were reaching hard in certain cases and they still felt useless. One example that drove me insane was when Godzilla went back to his bachelor pad to recharge, they then say this is where he comes to heal...and then proceed to nuke that shit. And I'm like...bitch, whatchu gon' do now if he gets hurt?! You're just gonna find him and nuke him every single time he's hurt?! What the fuck kind of plan is that? I get that the movie writers wanted a sense of urgency, but that was such an idiotic way to accomplish something needed for the plot. They introduced a cool concept and then eliminated it immediately. Oy. Another example is Mark's dumbass screaming for Maddie like she can possibly hear him at Fenway Park with fucking Ghidorah and Godzilla literally fighting right on top of the stadium. Are you kidding me? My God, Mark is stupid. He did the same thing when he ran into the base with a fucking pistol screaming her name and letting the armed mercs know exactly where the hell he was. I am shocked his dumbass didn't get immediately picked off. Moron.

-Sarigawa's death was some full-on nonsense. Fuck you for killing the only credible actor in the entire movie, and what's worse is that it very much feels like a person of color dying for the sake of some goddamn white people. Because, yes, folks, I'm sorry, this is a white woman's fault. All this shit is because a white woman wanted to be Thanos and now this awesome dude has to sacrifice himself. Fuck off. I hate this point in the story, even though bless Watanabe for giving us the only credible emotional scene in the entire movie.

-Even though she was barely a character, I disliked Sally Hawkins biting it randomly in the first third, and not getting much reverence. No, we didn't know shit about her, but it felt like the movie just said "fuck it" and moved right along like it was no big deal. I don't know why they even bothered.

-How in God's name did they somehow "sneak" Ghidorah's whole ass head out of fucking Boston with no one noticing? It's a giant dragon head! How did you fucking do that and no one saw you bring it all the way to Mexico? I swear to God, this movie is filled with plotholes. I'm fine with them setting up Mecha Ghidorah or just cloning him all over again, but why couldn't it just have been in Boston and they just snuck in during the dead of night and moved it somewhere nearby? That thing is gigantic and it's a hard pill to swallow that they just left without anyone noticing it.

EDIT: A fan corrected me that this was the head that Godzilla ripped off before the end fight, so the above point is invalid. Nice catch! Thank you! 

-Nitpick: Did Mothra die? That was unclear. I hope not. She's the Queen. I'll have to ask some Godzilla fans to explain what they thought happened after Ghidorah blasted her in the final fight.

-Nitpick: Good God, these human characters survive shit that would easily kill a normal person and it is a little bit grating on the nerves to suspend your disbelief this hard.

-Nitpick: I hate it when monsters the size of fucking buildings somehow notice tiny ass humans enough to bother giving them their attention or even their ire. "An ant has no quarrel with a boot." I hated it in '98 Godzilla and I still hate it. Something on that scale should not even vaguely bother with one tiny human being, but that's me.

I know I have some very heavy criticisms, but this is still a decent flick if you're just going to shell out for a matinee showing. The monsters are great and entertaining and there's plenty of fighting to go around that is worth a peek, especially the end fight with Ghidorah and Godzilla. It was pretty cool to see in IMAX as well, but I leave that up to you folks if it's worth it.

Kyo out.

[sunarocks]

Thirty Questions!

From http://otp-imagines-cult.tumblr.com/post/132479890037/otp-questions

1: Who spends almost all their money on the other?

Lee. He took a serious amount of A-ranked missions and used almost all of his money to support Gaara's hobby in cultivating cacti. Gaara sure had money to spare but since he was a Kage, he was extremely careful to use them for his personal stuff. Also, Lee had no hobby- (jumping side to side is NOT a hobby, Lee.)

2: Who sleeps in the other’s lap? Lee. Gaara once tried to sleep on Lee's lap but he found his tights are all MUSCLES, they hurt his neck and shoulder. Gaara would prefer Lee's torso, though. His chest, especially.

3: Who walks around the house half-naked and who yells at them to put on some clothes? Lee would roam around the house with a towel or blanket and Gaara would slap the shit out of him using his sand fight me.

4: Which one tells the other not to stay up all night and which one stays up all night anyway? Lee would tell Gaara to sleep right away but Gaara, being an ex-vessel of Shukaku, couldn't help his continuous insomnia. He might let Lee sleep first, he would read some books while Lee hugged his waist. (DOMESTIC FLUFF ALERT ME DEAD)

5: Which one tries to make food for the other but burns it all by accident and which one tells them that it’s okay and makes them both cookies? Gaara thought that baking had the same difficulties as gardening but he was wrong. Lee, had he lived alone for a long time, knew how to cook so he would be the one to offer some help. I could imagine he patted Gaara's head and the Kage was sulking lmao.

6: Which one reads OTP prompts and says “Oh that’s us!” and which one goes “Eh, not really”? Lee would yell with extreme enthusiasm and Gaara was being all dense. It was canon that Gaara was a DEADPAN when it came to romance. He didn't even notice Temari's relationship with Shikamaru, BUT KANKURO DID.

7: Which one constantly wears the other’s clothes? Gaara. I assumed that Lee didn't wear his signature green spandex when he was at home. Maybe a pair of matching pajamas or a simple t-shirt, but Gaara would prefer wearing Lee's instead of his own. Especially when Lee was away on a mission because of yea right, Gaara, you didn't miss him. Also, we don't want to see Lee in the mesh clothing. It'd screw you.

8: Which one spends all day running errands and which one says “You remembered [thing], right?” Lee, OF COURSE. And Gaara being Gaara, he would tell Lee a countless time not to forget anything on his list. Lee could be dumb, sometimes, and Gaara wasn't famous for his patience.

9: Which one drives the car and which one gives them directions? OMG COLLEGE AU /no Lee would do the driving and Gaara would read the maps. Gaara didn't trust Lee for doing things required some brains. (sorry, Lee.) Also, it was in his blood for being sassy, bossy, and to order someone else around. Lee was happy with that, though.

10: Which one does the posing while the other one draws? None. (...) Both of them are not that artistic type. Maybe Sai would draw them together.

11: If they were about to rob a museum, which one does backflips through lasers and which one is strolling behind with a bag of chips? ISN'T IT OBVIOUS. Lee was the executor. He would do all the dirty jobs since he mastered hand-to-hand-combat and Gaara was waiting in the car, munching on cooked gizzard, as he was the mastermind behind the robbery. He has done enough.

12: Which one of your OTP overdoes it on the alcohol and which one makes the other stop drinking. This is funny because Gaara dislikes alcohol and Lee couldn't stand it either. Even in a social gathering, Gaara preferred cold tea (this is canon from Gaara Hiden) and Lee, a single drop of alcohol would drive him insane. So, none. They both wouldn't touch the beverages in the first place.

13: Which one likes to surprise the other with a lot of small random gifts? Lee would. And it would be totally random. He would pick a heart-shaped stone in the middle of his way back from a mission as a souvenir because it reminded him of Gaara's scar on his forehead. THAT random.

14: Which one keeps accidentally using the other’s last name instead of their own? None. In the world of Shinobi, the clan is as important as the way of the ninja. Not to mention that Gaara had an obligation to keep his name and clan and blood as an identity. Rock Lee was one of two last Lees in the world so they would keep it that way.

15: Which one screams about the spider and which one brings the spider outside? THEY BOTH WOULD KILL THE SPIDER USING THEIR SUPERB JUTSU. Fouth gate and Sand Waterfall Imperial Funeral. Might end up destroying the apartment, too.

16: Which one gives the other their jacket? It was canon when Gaara said that even his sand couldn't counter extreme temperature drop in the middle of the desert. Lee would be the one to offer Gaara his jacket and jokingly said that he could open the First Gate to warm himself up. Gaara would smack his head for that. 17: Who keeps getting threatened by the other’s overprotective older sibling? WE ALL KNOW WHERE IS THIS GOING LMAO. Temari would act like a bad cop, Kankuro as the good one. Kankuro and Lee got along well as we saw them in Shippuden #497 but I guess Temari, no matter how much she supported their relationship, would always remind Lee to take good care of her little brother. Oh yes, she spoiled him a LOT. 18: Who’s the first one to admit they have feelings for the other? Lee was a sincere person. As their relationship went closer than just a friend, Lee would likely think that it was perfectly fine if Gaara didn't realize his feeling. He told himself to keep himself together while Gaara already realized it a long time ago but decided to deny it. When Gaara eventually accepted his special, romantic feeling toward Lee, he would ask Lee if Lee felt the same and Lee was like, "I HAVE LOVED YOU FOR A DECADE ALREADY BUT THANK YOU FOR NOTICING IT." 19: How good would your OTP be at parenting? DAMN GOOD. They were both single parents with a son who were raised well and somehow a complete blueprint of them in their younger age. They even didn't find a wife to do that and it left me speechless. Two gay dads are what we need in Boruto series, proof me wrong.

20: Which one types with perfect grammar and which one types using numbers as letters? Gaara, HE WAS A KAGE, he had to write everything in perfection as he dealt with official reports and he had to submit it to the Councils. But Rock Lee wasn't that corny either, he wrote in a decent way. Not a flowery one, but also he wouldn't use numbers as letters.

21: Who gets attacked by a bully and who protects them? GAARA BULLIED LEE LMAO. No seriously Gaara did all the bullies and Lee is like, STOP IT, BABE, YOU COULD LITERALLY KILL THEM. He was almost killed once let's get real smh. 22: Who makes the bad puns and who makes a pained smile every time the other makes a pun? This one is also obvious. Lee did the pun and Gaara would sigh a long long long breathe because Lee reminded him to his own brother. 23: Who comes home from work to see that the other one bought a puppy? Lee would come home and see Gaara adopted A FREAKING CHILD. 24: Which one gives the other a piggyback ride when they’re tired? Lee gave Gaara a piggyback because the Kage was clingy. 25: Which one competes in some sort of activity and which one does the overzealous cheering? Lee loved to compete and roamed around randomly challenged people but Gaara wouldn't do the cheering so... But if Gaara was challenged by someone and he accepted it, Lee would undoubtedly express his enthusiasm.

26: Who takes a selfie when the other one falls asleep on their shoulder? Lee and he would BRAG it on social media. 27: Which one would give the other a makeover if they asked? Well, we saw Gaara in various clothing and hairstyles, so I guess Gaara would give Lee some makeover. The first thing he would get rid of was the bowl-cut, let's bet. 28: Which one owns a pet that the other is absolutely terrified of? Gaara. He once had Shukaku and everybody feared him for that /NOT IN THAT CONTEXT- But seriously, Gaara adopted an iron-sand user, so he most likely owned a dangerous/exotic pet and Lee had to push himself to feed them. 29: Which one holds the umbrella over both of them when it rains? Lee. He knew that Gaara's sand would be weakened in contact with water. So he would keep his spouse safe by shielding him... using an umbrella. Sometimes you can't just rely on your 'absolute defense'. 30: If your OTP went on vacation, where would they go and what would they do? Who would take the pictures? Both of them are practical type so laying on the bed all days was counted as a vacation. But since canonically Gaara considered Konoha as a 'paradise' due to its tropical climate and was blessed by rain, they would simply go to Konoha and enjoyed the... Forest. Lee would take a lot of pictures of his husband it would cringe everyone who saw the result.

[seedfinance]

Researchers claim Fortress S03 home security system can be remotely disabled – TechCrunch

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s greatest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3:00 p.m. PDT, subscribe here.

Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for September 1st, 2021. It’s a big day in TechCrunch history as we have been shuffled into a new parent company. More on that in a moment. First, bother the attendees, you can now go to CrunchMatch to meet other cool people. See you there! – Alex

The TechCrunch top 3

Hello Apollon! TechCrunch is no longer part of the Verizon Media Group, a somewhat forgotten subsidiary of the US telecommunications company. Instead, we’re now part of Yahoo, which in turn is owned by Apollo, a large, publicly traded investment company. Cue the parade. All jokes aside, the long announced deal is finally closed. We’ll have more notes on our new overlords as soon as we meet them.

In Amplitude’s IPO registration: TechCrunch’s coverage of the accelerating IPO market continued today with comments on Amplitude’s product analytics debut. For more information on Toast and Freshworks submissions, see head here or here. Oh, and Warby Parker herewhen D2C is your traffic jam.

Let’s stick with the big dollar news today Vista Equity buys a majority stake in Drift. Boston-based Drift focuses on what are known as “conversational” sales tools. The two parties were on a goofy level by failing to disclose the price paid for Drift, other than the company’s majority sale valuing the former startup at more than $ 1 billion. Why Drift was sold to Vista instead of going public is not clear, but we feel cheated out of S-1 filing.

Startups / VC

As we write to you today, the TechCrunch team is busy writing thousands of words over the second day of Y Combinator’s demo day startup pitches. You can read about every startup that pitched yesterday.

Now for today’s news. First, Berlin Brands, which is buying brands and hoping to scale those that sell on Amazon, is now worth more than $ 1 billion after raising a $ 700 million equity and debt round. There appears to be an infinite amount of capital available to finance the purchase of smaller e-commerce brands.

So much so that Forum Brands also announced new capital for the activity today. Its $ 100 million debt financing may sound small compared to what Berlin Brands just secured, but it’s still nine-figure dry powder.

Blueprint Raises $ 16 Million to Scale Its Title Insurance Business: It turns out that the US title business is too valuable. Blueprint aims to reduce its size by offering cheaper coverage to customers buying multiple properties in multiple states.

Insurify Raises $ 100 Million As Insurtech Marketplaces Stay Hot: Sure, new insurance providers have been taking a dip in the public markets lately, but the insurtech marketplace game still looks sane. Insurify, which competes with Zebra and other players, is now $ 100 million richer. As an indicator, we suspect that there is still a lot of market for attacks.

If you want more on the Insurtech venture capital market, TechCrunch is behind you.

Call center automation is big business: At least for Skit, a startup that just completed a Series B worth $ 23 million. According to our own Kate Park, Skit’s technology helps its customers automate almost all of their voice support calls.

Companies we know little about raise a lot of money: Ever heard of Humane? Probably not. The startup, which was born to some ex-Apple people – “which has ambitions to build a new class of consumer devices and technologies,” TechCrunch reports – has no products on the market. Yet it raised $ 100 million this week after raising $ 30 million last year. What is being built? I think we will find out.

Our favorite startups from YC Summer 21 Demo Day, Part 1

Twice a year we turn our attention to Y Combinator’s newest class of emerging startups making their public debuts.

For the YC Summer 2021 Demo Day, the fourth virtual meeting of the Accelerator, Natasha Mascarenhas, Alex Wilhelm, Devin Coldewey, Lucas Matney and Greg Kumparak selected 14 favorites from the first day of one of the world’s best pitch competitions.

Read her analysis and come back later today for an overview of the second day.

(Extra Crunch is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams move forward. You can sign up here.)

Big Tech Inc.

Today’s big tech news is mostly focused on feature upgrades. Enjoy!

TechCrunch Experts: Growth Marketing

Credit: SEAN GLADWELL (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

In case you didn’t catch it yesterday: We’re giving away a free ticket for Disrupt via the expert survey. Check out the Disrupt schedule and read on to learn more about the giveaway details.

Have you already made a recommendation? This is great – we count all previous survey submissions as an entry for the disrupt ticket.

We will also take part in the raffle for the next 100 survey entries.

Would you like to make 10 recommendations to increase your chance of winning? We love the enthusiasm, but we ask that you only make one recommendation for each marketer you have worked with.

Not sure what to say in your recommendation? Start with what qualities they had, what they did to help your company, how their work affected your business, and go from there!

We go through all entries manually, so please do not copy the same answer multiple times.

Do you have a question about the competition? Send us an email at ec_editors@techcrunch.com.

Community

Credit: Jonathan Metrick

Join Danny Crichton and Mary Ann Azevedo on Twitter Spaces Tuesday, September 7 at 3:00 p.m. PDT / 6:00 p.m. EDT as they talk to Jonathan Metrick about fintech and growth marketing.

source https://seedfinance.net/2021/09/01/researchers-claim-fortress-s03-home-security-system-can-be-remotely-disabled-techcrunch/

[typhoonprecious-blog]

Books coming out this week: Eden, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, and more

Books coming out this week: Eden, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, and more

Remember the simpler times? Like when you weren't constantly dehydrated, and your weather app didn't say “feels like 150 degrees,” and you didn't sweat through your T-shirt after being outside for only 30 seconds? Woof. I can barely remember the simpler, cooler times myself. This summer is no joke. So, grab a fan, fix yourself a cool beverage, and dive into the books coming out this week. Because indoor activities are sort of the only option right now. But if you MUST be outside, these titles make great beach reads, too.

If you're reading along in the #HGBookClub with us, we're getting seriously into Social Creature by Tara Isabella Burton, and things are getting tense. Have you ever had a friend like Lavinia? Have you ever felt like a Louise? Who is tricking whom? And, pray tell, who is the narrator?! Only time will tell. Follow along and show us where you're reading with #HGBookClub.

And now, here are 12 books coming out this week that you don't want to miss.

1. Eden by Andrea Kleine, out July 10th

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

When Hope and Eden were girls, they were abducted by a man they thought was a friend of their father's. They escaped, but the traumatic near-death experience left deep emotional scars. Now, 20 years later, the man is up for parole, and they may be able to keep him in jail with testimonies - but first, Hope must find Eden. Don't miss this haunting novel with heartbreaking themes of attachment and trauma.

2. My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh, out July 10th

Penguin Press

In My Year of Rest and Relaxation, our narrator's life appears to be perfect. She's thin, blonde, pretty, rich, and gainfully employed at an art gallery in New York City. And yet - because there's so much more to life than what we see on the outside - she's depressed. She finds the world's worst psychiatrist who prescribes her anything and everything, effectively inducing a year where she lives through a hazy drug-induced coma and sleeps life away. Though it's fiction, My Year of Rest and Relaxation will open your eyes to the realities of how much our mental healthcare system seriously lacks IRL.

3. No One Tells You This by Glynnis MacNicol, out July 10th

Simon & Schuster

When Glynnis MacNicol turned 40, she reflected on her successful writing career and full life in New York City. But she still couldn't escape the fact that she didn't have the two things she was “supposed” to have by then: a wedding ring and a baby. Rather than feeling bad about it, she decided to create a blueprint for herself and the rest of the happily single women of the world. No One Tells You This is the most empowering memoir you'll read all summer.

4. What We Were Promised by Lucy Tan, out July 10th

Little, Brown and Company

What We Were Promised tells the story of a family that returns home to Shanghai after living the American dream in the U.S. Upon their homecoming, they're welcomed into an elite community of those who were born in China, educated in the states, and have returned back home since. When Lina finds that her ivory bracelet, a keepsake from her childhood, has gone missing, it sends everyone in their household spiraling. From the head of the household to their housekeeper, everyone is searching for meaning and belonging.

5. Clock Dance by Anne Tyler, out July 10th

Knopf Publishing Group

When Willa receives a phone call that her son's ex-girlfriend was shot and needs her help, she immediately flies across the country to take care of her (and her nine-year-old daughter) (and her dog). Why does she do it? To take a chance on choosing her own path. Clock Dance is a bittersweet reminder to take risks and live a life that satisfies you, not someone else.

6. The Marginalized Majority: Claiming Our Power in a Post-Truth America by Onnesha Roychoudhuri, out July 10th

Melville House

Want to know how to get involved? Want to know how to fight back? Read The Marginalized Majority. It will completely change the way you think about our current political climate. Onnesha Roychoudhuri reminds us that even though our country may feel divided, we're actually fighting for many of the same things.

7. An Ocean of Minutes by Thea Lim, out July 10th

Touchstone

An Ocean of Minutes is a futuristic novel, but it's still so heartbreakingly human. Set in a world where time travel exists and Americans are experiencing a deadly flu, Polly travels to the future to find the treatment that her sick boyfriend Frank needs. They agree to meet in Galveston, Texas, 12 years in the future. But when Polly is re-routed another five years into the future, everything has changed, and Frank is nowhere to be found.

8. From the Corner of the Oval by Beck Dorey-Stein, out July 10th

Spiegel & Grau

Raise your hand if you miss President Barack Obama. (Same.) Even though he's no longer in office, you can relive his greatest hits and go behind the scenes of his administration through the eyes of one of his former staff members. Beck Dorey-Stein worked as one of Obama's stenographers. As she transcribed his words, she also found her own voice as a writer. Even though you've probably never flown on Air Force One or shared the gym with POTUS, you'll still relate to her stories of making friends, getting your heart broken, and finding your voice in your twenties.

9. The Lido by Libby Page, out July 10th

Simon & Schuster

Kate works as a reporter for a small local paper in Brixton, London. She receives an assignment to cover the closing of the local lido, an outdoor pool and rec center. Once there she meets Rosemary, an 86-year-old widow who has swum there every single day since it opened. The more Kate gets to know Rosemary and learns about the lido, her small assignment becomes a lifechanging friendship. And together, the two women fight to keep the lido open.

10. All These Beautiful Strangers by Elizabeth Klehfoth, out July 10th

William Morrow

When Grace disappears from her family's lake house, it leaves her seven-year-old daughter Charlie with many unanswered questions. 10 years later, Charlie is still struggling to put the past behind her. She chooses to throw herself into life at her prestigious school. When she gets tapped by the A's, an elite secret society, she must play The Game to be accepted. Will she survive the diabolical semester-long scavenger hunt - or the terrible truths about her past?

11. Evolution of Goddess: A Modern Girl's Guide to Activating Your Feminine Superpowers by Emma Mildon, out July 10th

Atria Books

It's time to get spiritual and celebrate your inner goddess. Evolution of Goddess is filled with the histories of the goddesses through the ages that you need to know. Plus, you'll learn how to tap into your own feminine superpowers.

12. Suicide Club by Rachel Heng, out July 10th

Henry Holt and Co.

For another futuristic novel, don't miss Suicide Club, set 300 years in the future in New York City. Lea is a Lifer, meaning she has the chance to live forever. But when runs into her estranged father, she gets sucked into the Suicide Club, his mysterious group that rejects the idea of immortality. Lea must choose between living forever and spending a short amount of time with her last remaining family.

Happy reading!

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