#karzai

[shamballalin]

Afghanistan ~ Who's to Blame

The following is written by national, regional and state award-winning columnist and newspaper editor John Hourihan. On Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists attacked us. On Sept. 18, 2001, President Bush invaded Afghanistan. In 2002 the battle shifted to Iraq, under President Bush. Reconstruction began in Afghanistan. In 2003 Bush declared “Mission Accomplished.” In 2004 Karzai was elected president…

[afghan-arash-get2dapoint-afghan]

عمر خطاب: نواسه شرابی پيغامبر سید مخدوم رهین وزیر کرزی Drunk Holy Karza...

[rajinderbajaj07]

#दहेज_मुक्त_भारत_अभियान

निर्धनता तथा समाज में फैली कुरीतियाँ जैसे दहेज प्रथा, विवाह पर अनाप-सनाप खर्च करना, मृत्यु भोज, बड़ी बारात आदि-आदि तथा अन्य बुराईयाँ जैसे नशा आदि-आदि के कारण निर्धन व्यक्ति कर्ज तथा गंभीर बीमारी से परेशान होकर तथा अपनी कन्याओं के विवाह व मँहगी पढ़ाई के कारण आत्महत्या तक परिस्थिति उत्पन्न हो जाती है।

इन सब परेशानियों का खात्मा संत रामपाल जी महाराज जी के सत्संग वचनों व सतभक्ति से ही हो सकता है। संत रामपाल जी महाराज जी ही दहेज मुक्त भारत का निर्माण कर रहे हैं।

🌺🌺🌺🌸🌸🌸

[gregor-samsung]

Eravamo insieme davanti alla televisione mentre sullo schermo scorrevano le immagini della ritirata degli americani dall’Afghanistan, anno di grazia 2021, e l’arrivo dei talebani in varie città del paese. Le ragazze di Kabul fuoriuscivano dallo schermo, con i loro quaderni, i loro zaini, le loro matite, la loro voglia di non perdere l’istruzione e la vita che in quei decenni di relativa calma avevano ottenuto a suon di sacrifici. Quelle ragazze di un’altra latitudine le sono scoppiate letteralmente nel cuore. E ho visto hooyo [=mamma] tremare di rancore. Più volte si è alzata in piedi e si è avvicinata alla televisione. Più volte, con un gesto tanto meraviglioso quanto inutile, ha cercato di sorreggere quelle ragazze stanche e affamate di un altro continente con le sue mani minute che accarezzavano il vetro dello schermo. La vedevo mentre cercava di tendere loro il braccio per teletrasportarle sulla pista dove aerei dalla pancia grossa si dirigevano verso una salvezza qualsiasi. Le facevano troppo pena quelle ragazze giovani e intraprendenti, immerse come grumi di merda nel canale di scolo che costeggiava l’aeroporto internazionale Hamid Karzai.

“Dovrebbero stare in un’aula, davanti a una maestra o a un maestro,” mi ha detto con voce sconvolta, adirata. “Davanti a una lavagna, con in mano un gesso, una penna, una possibilità. Accidenti, devono stare in classe con una maestra o un maestro che gli apre una finestra sul mondo.” “Invece, hooyo,” sussurro io, “sono grumi di merda in un canale di scolo.” Grumi di merda destinati a diventare grumi di sangue. Sì, sangue e materia cerebrale. Quando il telegiornale ha dato la notizia di persone assiepate all’aeroporto di Kabul, ho visto la rabbia di hooyo trasformarsi prima in furia e poi in lacrime. Per giorni ha camminato nervosa dentro casa, per strada, nelle terre della sua fantasia, alla ricerca di qualcosa che riuscisse a calmare le raffiche del suo cuore ferito. Era arrabbiata per la triste sorte che stavano subendo le ragazze di Kabul, ma era arrabbiata anche per se stessa. Si era rispecchiata in quelle giovani dagli occhi da cerbiatto, ragazze con quaderni e penne in mano, e si era chiesta perché a molte persone, più donne che uomini, sia ancora proibito sognare.

Igiaba Scego, Cassandra a Mogadiscio, Bompiani (collana Narratori Italiani), 2023¹; pp. 148-149.

[indecentpause]

The Succession of Us

Iffy Jackson is starting over. She’s out of her racist as hell high school and in a diverse college, living the family’s dream. Nothing can stop her now.

That is, as long as she doesn’t let that cute, nonverbal guy named Nate distract her from her studies. He doesn’t mean to, honest! But they keep bumping into each other, like it might be fate.

Period Romance. M/F with a bisexual female lead

Ao3 || Wattpad

Book two of the Holding Our Hearts in Our Hands series

[reportwire]

Today in History: December 7, Japan attacks Pearl Harbor

Today in History: December 7, Japan attacks Pearl Harbor

Today in History Today is Wednesday, Dec. 7, the 341st day of 2022. There are 24 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History: On Dec. 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan launched an air raid on the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as well as targets in Malaya, Hong Kong, Guam, the Philippines and Wake Island; the United States declared war against Japan the next day. On this date: In…

[sgtgrunt0331-3]

U.S. Marines with Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force - Crisis Response - Central Command, take a moment to rest during the evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan on August 21, 2021.

Five days later, 13 of their comrades would lose their lives in a suicide bombing. We shall never forget their courage and sacrifice. Semper Fi.

(Photo by Staff Sgt. Victor Mancilla)

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Brendan O’Neill

And yet there is something off, even something nauseating, in all the Western finger-wagging. It isn’t only Cameron. US president Joe Biden has also weighed in, saying he is ‘outraged’ by the killing of the aid workers. You can’t help but wonder whether he directed similar outrage at his own nation’s military when 37 Afghanis at a wedding party, mostly women and children, were killed by mistake in a US airstrike.

‘Stop killing Afghan civilians’, the then president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, said to the newly elected US president, Barack Obama. And who was Obama’s vice-president? Biden, of course. You would think a man whose own military has killed huge numbers of people in error would understand that these things happen, even if every decent person would rather they didn’t.

Vast numbers of civilians have been killed by accident by the US in recent years. At another wedding party in 2004, this time in Iraq, 11 women and 14 children were killed by American fire. Was there a ‘full, transparent explanation’ for that calamity?

Terrible accidents happen in war. That’s because war is hell. If you hate the war in Gaza, as you should, then you should aim your ire at Hamas, the virulently anti-Semitic terror group that started this war with its pogrom against the people of southern Israel on 7 October. The seven decent souls of World Central Kitchen would be alive today had Hamas not taken the decision to visit its racist barbarism on the Jewish State.

For once war starts, error becomes unavoidable. There are few wars in history – none, perhaps – in which innocents have not perished in the violent maelstrom. What is striking about Israel’s mistake is that it is not being treated as ‘friendly fire’ at all. Instead it is held up as proof of Israel’s evil, evidence of its malevolence.

[mariacallous]

Of the many missteps the United States made in its two-decade war in Afghanistan, one of the early ones involved a missed opportunity with the Taliban. In December 2001, just weeks after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban made an offer to the Bush administration: Its fighters would be willing to lay down their arms, provided they could live “in dignity” in their homes without being pursued and detained.

The offer was made in the form of a message to Afghan political leader Hamid Karzai. Had it been accepted, it may have prevented years of bloodshed and a long American occupation that ended in ignominy. But the United States at the time was reeling from the attacks of 9/11 and determined to eviscerate the group that had hosted al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and refused to hand him over. U.S. officials did not even respond to the offer.

Zalmay Khalilzad, a U.S. diplomat who dealt with Afghanistan for years, had a chance to ask the Taliban about that early truce offer while negotiating with the group much later—in 2021. He was struck by the response. “They thought that 20 years of war and all the loss of life on all sides was due to that mistake, as they saw it.”

This week marks three years since the Taliban marched on Kabul and regained control of Afghanistan. The hasty American retreat—and specifically the scenes of chaos at the Kabul airport—stand as a foreign-policy debacle for the Biden administration.

But America’s failure in Afghanistan is a much longer story. To try to understand it, Foreign Policy set out to explore why for two decades some of the world’s most experienced negotiators failed to reach an agreement that would have brought lasting peace to the country. The result of the reporting is a seven-episode season of our podcast, The Negotiators, produced in partnership with Doha Debates, and including interviews with key U.S., Afghan, and Taliban figures. You can hear it on our website or on any of the podcast platforms.

Based on conversations with the main actors, it is a story of misunderstandings, missed opportunities, and complacency—coupled with an American predilection for military action over diplomacy following the shock of 9/11. And while the Taliban were no pacifists themselves, they did at least show an early readiness to negotiate.

The misunderstandings and missed opportunities began to stack up in the closing stages of the U.S. invasion, when the Bush administration had the Taliban on the run and its focus was starting to shift toward Iraq. Uninterested in what it called “nation-building,” the administration asked the United Nations to shoulder the task of creating a new political order.

The result was a hastily convened conference in December 2001 in the German city of Bonn, which anointed Karzai as the new interim leader. But in line with U.S. wishes, the Taliban were excluded from the cross-section of Afghan political groups invited to attend.

For the U.N. and most of the Afghan delegates, the meeting was an opportunity to launch a peace process that would end the country’s forever war—which had been underway since the Soviet invasion in the late 1970s.

But for the Bush administration, the Bonn conference was simply a means “to consolidate victory in the war on terror,” according to American political scientist Barnett Rubin, who was then advising the U.N. envoy in charge of the meeting. “You can look through all the statements of all U.S. officials,” he said. “You will not find a word about peace in Afghanistan.”

That new order, agreed upon at the Bonn conference, did include plans for elections and a new constitution enshrining—among other things—rights for women. It also ushered in a period of optimism in Afghanistan, with millions of Afghan exiles returning home over the next few years, hopeful at that point that their country was on a path to stability with the West’s support.

But the Bonn agreement, patched together quickly, ended up cementing old divisions and creating new ones. “The underlying political issues were not even articulated at Bonn, let alone resolved,” Rubin said. It led directly to the Taliban taking up arms again, aided by the group’s sponsors in neighboring Pakistan, who also felt sidelined.

In response, the United States doubled down on its counterterrorism goal of trying to destroy the Taliban. Even figures who had been trying to maintain a dialogue were arrested, such as the Taliban’s former ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef.

In the years that followed, a weak, fractured, and aid-dependent Afghan government would struggle as the Taliban’s insurgency expanded. Their support grew as the death toll from U.S. night raids and airstrikes rose. But it was the Taliban, along with some of America’s European allies, who were first to revive efforts to talk.

One of those allies was Norway, which had troops in Afghanistan but also experience mediating in other conflicts. Lisa Golden, director of the Norwegian Foreign Ministry’s Peace and Reconciliation Department, said her government had quickly concluded that “a purely military solution wasn’t going to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan.” The ties it built up with Taliban representatives led to a series of meetings in hotel rooms, “with the fruit basket that they provided between us,” Golden recalled.

To show his support for the talks, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar dispatched a trusted aide in 2009 to establish contact with both U.S. and European officials.

But nearly a decade into the Afghan war, entrenched American attitudes toward the Taliban made it difficult to get any talks started. Because of the risk that the United States would detain him and bundle him off to Guantánamo Bay, the aide, Tayyab Agha, had to work through intermediaries and travel clandestinely to the Middle East to set up meetings.

President Barack Obama had inherited the war by now and appointed veteran U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke as his envoy for the region. Part of Holbrooke’s brief was to weigh talking to the Taliban, and he brought in Rubin as one of his advisors. But the United States still had “no policy toward a political settlement,” said Rubin, nor on how to engage with the Taliban.

When U.S. officials finally got the go-ahead to meet, it was only Agha, the Taliban emissary, who had a set of proposals and demands—the American side came empty-handed. Holbrooke’s sudden death, in late 2010, again stalled this tentative U.S. attempt to talk to the Taliban. And when his replacement was appointed, Rubin and his colleagues found themselves undermined by leaks from the Pentagon and the intelligence community, who were putting their hopes in the U.S. troop surge then underway, not peacemaking. “Most of the government was against us,” Rubin said.

And so it went, with misunderstandings and disagreements snarling efforts to promote talks, while the bloodshed mounted. A deal for the Taliban to open a political office in Qatar in 2013 fell apart when the Afghan government objected to its quasi-official status. By then, it was two years since the United States had killed bin Laden and the Pentagon was reducing its troop count, with plans for Afghan government forces to take the lead. But as their spokesperson, Suhail Shaheen, boasted at the time, the Taliban’s power had only increased.

President Donald Trump brought a different approach to the White House—a determination to withdraw American troops no matter what it meant for the Afghan government. But by then, U.S. leverage had weakened. “Instead of trying to negotiate at the apex of U.S. power and the nadir of Taliban power and capability in Afghanistan, we finally got serious about it as the U.S. was clearly on the way out the door and the Taliban was making steady advances,” said Laurel Miller, who served as acting U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the start of the Trump administration.

Trump instructed Khalilzad to negotiate a withdrawal—but that meant that the chief U.S. concern was getting out safely, not achieving an Afghan peace settlement. This was underlined by the fact that only American and Taliban negotiators met in the early stages, consigning the Afghan government to the sidelines. The arrangement mirrored the way the Taliban were left out at Bonn in 2001.

The United States and the Taliban did manage to strike a deal: the Doha Accord, which was signed in February 2020. It was supposed to be followed by power-sharing negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government. But since the United States had already agreed on a date for withdrawing its forces, the Taliban had no real incentive to bargain further. “It made it very easy for the Taliban just to wait us out,” said Gen. Joseph Votel, head of U.S. Central Command from 2016 to 2019.

Hamdullah Mohib, who served as the national security advisor to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at the time, accused Khalilzad of going behind the Afghan government’s back in his negotiations, calling it colonial behavior.

Khalilzad, in an extended interview for the podcast, rejected these accusations and insisted he kept Ghani and his officials fully informed. But he acknowledged “there was a conscious decision” not to tie America’s withdrawal to an agreement between the Ghani government and the Taliban, because of concerns that any linkage would delay its exit. Ghani’s government struggled to adjust to the new reality created by the agreement—and failed to strike a deal with the Taliban.

For older Afghans who had lived under the first Taliban regime and others who had prospered under the umbrella of the 20-year U.S. occupation, the group’s dramatic return to power in August 2021 was devastating. Many Afghans swarmed the Kabul airport to board evacuation flights. Afghan women braced for a new reality—with severe restrictions imposed on their everyday lives.

Three years later, girls above grade six are still not allowed to attend school. While the international community pressures the Taliban to relax the restrictions, the group chafes at the West’s continued embargo and its refusal to recognize its government.

In the interview, Khalilzad conceded that Afghanistan had been a lesson for the United States in “the limits of what military force can achieve.” Washington had made many mistakes in its war on terror after 9/11, in both Iraq and Afghanistan, he said. “The policies that we pursued, the forces we strengthened, in a significant way contributed to the changes that were inconsistent with our values and, arguably, at least after a certain period, with our interests as well.”

[dertaglichedan]

Trump Honors Afghanistan Troops as ABC, CBS, NBC Morning Shows Ignore Anniversary

President Donald Trump paid his respects to the 13 U.S. troops who were killed three years ago during President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan — while the morning shows on the major networks ignored the anniversary.

Monday, August 26, 2024, marked three years since the day a suicide bomber affiliated with the local branch of the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS) killed 13 American service members and wounded dozens more at Kabul’s airport — while also murdering roughly 170 local civilians who were trying to flee the country.

Trump visited Arlington National Cemetery, laying a wreath alongside Marine Corporal Kelsee Lainhart, who was partially paralyzed by the blast.

NewsBusters.com noted that ABC, CBS, and NBC ignored the three-year anniversary on their Monday morning shows:

Monday marked three years since the deadly Islamic terror attack in Kabul, Afghanistan at Hamid Karzai International Airport that murdered 13 American soldiers, 170 Afghans, and left over 150 people wounded. Instead of even briefly acknowledging this painful day for American families in what became the symbol of the Biden-Harris’s administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, ABC, CBS, and NBC completely ignored it on their flagship morning news shows. To repeat: not a word from ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS Mornings, and NBC’s Today about the sacrifice of the brave Americans standing guard at Abbey Gate. The networks shamefully adopted the mold of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in being radio silent (aside from paper statements released from their handlers). In contrast, cable news shows that aired during that same block — Fox Business Network’s Mornings with Maria, Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends, Newsmax’s Wake Up America, NewsNation’s Morning in America, and even CNN News Central — all mentioned it multiple times.

Neither President Biden nor Vice President Kamala Harris visited Arlington, though both issued statements.

[afghan-arash-get2dapoint-afghan]

Arash Get2DaPoint Humor: Temor Shah Hassan vs Makhdoom Raheen

[disco-elysium-via-polls]

🎵Doomed Commercial Area

3. "I'm not sure, Kim... but I think I can hear someone talking upstairs."

KIM KITSURAGI - "Wait, really?" He looks up at the ceiling. "Maybe it's coming from behind those safety curtains we saw upstairs?"

3. Smear your hands with coal.

CENTRAL FURNACE - A lush layer of coal now covers your skin, sinking into the wrinkles. Your hands look ancient.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - You feel the spirit of Ramout Karzai, ancient hero of Graad, pulsing through you. All that's left is to cover your face in war-paint.

Hadramut Karzai! Smear your cheeks black with coal.

No, let's not express ourselves. Let's just wipe our hands clean on our pants.

INLAND EMPIRE - Three dangerous stripes appear onto your cheeks, telling stories of your wild soul.

KIM KITSURAGI - "What... what are you doing?"

"I am the reincarnation of an ancient Iilmaraan warrior."

"Nothing!" (Wipe your face clean.) "Sorry, that was stupid."

KIM KITSURAGI - "Please wipe your face clean, officer."

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] - No, you're a proud warrior, keep it.

[Authority - Medium 11] Don't wipe it.

Wipe it clean.

+1 Kim trusts you.

AUTHORITY [Medium: Failure] - You can feel your cheeks turn red under the lieutenant's gaze -- you look like a kid, not a police officer. Even the war-paint can't conceal the embarrassment.

Wipe it clean.

KIM KITSURAGI - "Thank you," the lieutenant nods. "So, where were we?" He turns back to the furnace.

4. "Those voices I heard... Maybe it's the malignant Entity? Plaisance said it lives in a chimney."

KIM KITSURAGI - "You're right, the rooms do look like they're connected. But *malignant Entities* don't exist -- at least not the *supra-natural* kind."

RHETORIC [Medium: Success] - Always has to be the sceptic, this man...

HALF LIGHT [Medium: Success] - Then what was the chatter you heard?

6. Kick it with your foot.

CENTRAL FURNACE - A hollow ring echoes through the furnace. Your toe hurts.

-1 Health +1 The Destroyer

5. [Physical Instrument - Medium 10] Yell "Hello!" into the furnace.

+1 Kicked the furnace. +1 Called Slipstream SCA again. +1 Helping Soona with research.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Medium: Success] - Something *breaks loose* in you. A mighty bellow echoes throughout the chimney's depths. The chatter of tiny voices above suddenly cease. Then...

CENTRAL FURNACE - "Hello?" you hear a woman's voice answer.

INLAND EMPIRE [Easy: Success] - You've awakened the entity!

"This is the Remote Viewers Division! Identify yourself!"

"I summon the ghost of this Doomed Commercial Area. Answer me, spirit!"

"Hello! Are you there? Speak to me!"

CENTRAL FURNACE - "Hello! Did you say anything?" There's a pause. "I can't hear you, please come upstairs! There's a safety curtain on the second floor, I'll open it!"

+5 XP

Level up!

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Easy: Success] - You hear a low rumble upstairs -- the sound of a curtain being pulled aside.

KIM KITSURAGI - The lieutenant nods, then points upstairs. "After you, officer."

6. [Leave.]

We're not quite done down here yet.

An ice cream maker, defrosted and unplugged.

The flashlight casts a strange shadow. There is a hidden doorway here...

Two rusty rifles are hidden above the piping, they look inoperable.

Someone has stuck some busted guns beneath the ceiling.

A HOLE IN THE WALL - A few bricks have fallen off, revealing a compartment behind the wall. It's too dark to see in.

"Where are we?" (Look around the secret room.)

"Look, there's a hole in the wall." (Shine light on the hidden compartment.)

[Leave.]

KIM KITSURAGI - "Seems like an old bunker from the Revolutionary period. Look at all those rifles..." He points up, at the rifles under the ceiling. "Must be an old weapons cache."

2. "Look, there's a hole in the wall." (Shine light on the hidden compartment.)

KIM KITSURAGI - "There is, yes. And there also appears to be something *inside* the hole... Interesting. Do you want to take a look?"

"Okay, I do…" (Look inside.)

"No, you do the honours." (Back off.)

A HOLE IN THE WALL - Your hand reaches deep into darkness and spider webs, rummaging around. You find rusty rifles, hidden away...

"Rifles, Kim!"

Inspect the rifles.

KIM KITSURAGI - The lieutenant steps closer, curious: "Are these any good?"

Inspect the rifles.

A HOLE IN THE WALL - Most of them are rusty and inoperable like the rest, but one catches your eye -- a bolt action model with a fine wood stock. In better cosmetic order than the others.

AUTHORITY [Easy: Success] - Take it! You're a police officer. Police officers carry guns.

"This one looks nice." (Take the rifle.)

KIM KITSURAGI - "An old Belle-Magrave, from the Revolution," the lieutenant notes with approval. His eyes are gleaming. "Seems to no longer be functional, but still -- a beautiful thing, in its own way."

Item Gained: Antique Belle-Magrave rifle

"Could the murder weapon we're looking for be similar?"

KIM KITSURAGI - "It's the same *type* of weapon, yes. A breechloader. An interesting coincidence that we should find something so similar. But I'm afraid our search for the real murder weapon must continue."

2. "What does this mean -- a rifle here?"

+1 Reputation

KIM KITSURAGI - "It means there are firearms -- albeit inoperable -- still lying around in Martinaise. It's an interesting coincidence, I would say. Might come in useful in the future."

+5 XP

EMPATHY [Trivial: Success] - He likes this find.

3. [Leave.]

ANTIQUE BELLE-MAGRAVE RIFLE

A broken Belle-Magrave BM446 from ages past. It's a four-shot, bolt-action military rifle with a wooden frame. It misses a bolt-spring and the mechanism is jammed shut.

Hmm... you know what?

FRACTURED BULLET - The bullet is still safely sealed away in a plastic bag bearing the RCM stamp.

4. [Hand/Eye Coordination - Legendary 14] Try to determine what type of weapon shot this.

+4 Have a similar rifle on hand. +1 Aware of the name of the antique rifle you found. +1 Have the full bullet specs.

HAND/EYE COORDINATION [Legendary: Success] - A rifle. Revolutionary-period. Your bullet looks to be an old 4.46 mm -- from the surplus left over from the turn of the century. Probably an antique or a retrofitted antique.

Make?

HAND/EYE COORDINATION - The 4.46 calibre was widely used with the *Belle-Magrave* rifle, a Revacholian manufacturer. The B-M dominated the battlefields of the Insulindian theatre of the Antecentennial Revolution, 50 years ago.

Incidentally, you have just such a rifle with you. The dusty old thing you found hidden in the basement below the commercial area. It's unusable, sadly. If it were, the bullet would *probably* fit the chamber.

+5 XP

Is anyone still making these rifles?

HAND/EYE COORDINATION - No, but Zieleger, a major firearm manufacturer, ended up with a surplus after the war, so there are still a lot of these old military rifles floating around, usually broken. The quality was appalling.

Who uses Belle-Magrave rifles these days?

HAND/EYE COORDINATION - Antiques enthusiasts, guerrilla fighters in distant countries, a few lucky Jamrock bangers. You're looking for the same thing you found in that hidden weapons cache -- only in working order.

KIM KITSURAGI - "Hmm..." The lieutenant jots something down in his notebook. "What are you thinking? Bullet?"

4. "I think I know where this came from." (Dangle the bag thoughtfully.)

KIM KITSURAGI - "Okay. And?"

"The shot probably came from a Belle-Magrave rifle."

"I mean... have some ideas, but I can't be sure..."

KIM KITSURAGI - "An antique. That makes sense. There can't be many breech-loading rifles floating around in Martinaise, or anywhere in Revachol, really..."

"Why not?"

"That's probably a good thing."

KIM KITSURAGI - He nods. "I have to hand it to the monarchs -- it's quite admirable that they took the advice of criminologists last century and banned the use of breechloaders in peacetime."

"Some new RCM recruits get impatient with their muzzleloaders once they've trained with military-grade weapons, but they realize it's worth it, in the end."

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Medium: Success] - Prohibiting peacetime law-enforcement to front loaded rifles is a policy enforced by the Moralist International in all the nations of the Reál Belt.

"Worth what? Getting shot?"

"I think we should have more *powerful* guns. We're the law!"

"Makes you consider every shot. I like it."

KIM KITSURAGI - "Imagine if everyone -- cops, citizens -- had access to firearms that could shoot multiple rounds without pausing to reload. After the first shot, the second, third, and so on -- come much easier."

"But back to the investigation."

"Seems we're looking for an antiques enthusiast."

"Could the victim have been mixed up with some foreign guerrilla fighters?"

"Have well-armed Jamrock bangers started crossing over into Martinaise?"

"Yes. Something *mysterious* is afoot with this antique bullet type."

KIM KITSURAGI - "Let's find out. Next step -- finding the gun itself."

+5 XP

5. The bullet has nothing more to say. [Put it away.]

A frozen ice cream maker that's still running.

INSANE MESH TANK TOP

+1 Drama: Clinically insane

Where did you even get that one? No really, who put it in that drawer. No further comments. Wear it at your own risk.

Intercom wires running into the breaker box.

A cellar window: people's feet shuffling by on the street.

BREAKER BOX - Two cables are plugged into the breaker box. The red one leads to the ice bear fridge and the black one to the ice cream maker nearby.

Unplug the giant red cable.

Unplug the black cable.

[Leave.]

BREAKER BOX - An electric sizzle! The room is slightly quieter now.

Maybe turning the ice bear fridge off will help stay the curse. A little.

2. Unplug the black cable.

BREAKER BOX - Something close to you dies with a soft electric purr.

KIM KITSURAGI - "Why did you do that?"

"It's black, it's not like it's the red one."

"Because it's black, the colour of immeasurable cosmos."

"I don't know why I unplugged it, I do things without any reason."

KIM KITSURAGI - The lieutenant raises his brows, but doesn't say anything. The electric distribution board now has one cable missing.

3. [Leave.]

Before we continue, I just want to show that these stairs lead to this door, which we can now open from this side.

ICE CREAM MAKER - This orange machine is dead-still. It has a hand-cranked ice cream churner and an electric freezer, the ice around it slowly melting.

Turn the ice cream crank.

Try to crack open the lid.

[Leave.]

ICE CREAM MAKER - Turning the crank feels oddly satisfying, like stirring your childhood dreams... In the distance you hear water dripping.

INLAND EMPIRE [Easy: Success] - It's all gone now. You never became a poet or an entroponaut.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] - What better to assuage the creeping sense of failure than some frozen fat and sugar?

2. Try to crack open the lid.

ICE CREAM MAKER - You slip your fingers under the frozen lid, but the ice is too cold for you to get a good grip. A prybar would come handy here... or something stronger, like the Kvalsund KR+2 Multi-Tool.

KIM KITSURAGI - "Didn't Soona give you a perfect tool for this kind of job -- the Kvalsund? You should take it out."

TUTORIAL AGENT - Equip the MULTI-TOOL by going to the TOOLS tab in your INVENTORY. From there, you can equip it to a HELD slot.

Yeah, ok, I got it the first time.

2. [Physical Instrument - Heroic 15] Crack open the lid.

+2 Machine unplugged. +1 Better grip with gloves.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Heroic: Success] - Ice groans and howls under the strain of your giant Kvalsund multitool -- until the lid cracks open.

ICE CREAM MAKER - Darkness lies inside, but you can faintly make out an object, intricate and foreign, left there for a sub-zero beauty sleep -- a filament memory with the words "OFF-SITE COPY" written on its side.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] - Disappointment washes over you as you stare into the almost-empty ice cream maker.

"What? No ice cream..."

Take the filament memory.

KIM KITSURAGI - "A scoop of ice cream would have been nice, yes," the lieutenant agrees. Someone's stomach grumbles. The room feels very cold.

Take the filament memory.

ICE CREAM MAKER - You gently lift the cube from its frosty bedding, careful to not damage it.

Item Gained: "Off-Site Copy" Filament Memory

KIM KITSURAGI - "We should take it back to Miss Luukanen-Kilde as soon as possible. I'm not sure how well unused filaments tolerate room temperatures."

INTERFACING [Easy: Success] - Yes, but aren't you curious to know what's on the precious filament? There's a radiocomputer upstairs...

[Close the lid.]

"OFF-SITE COPY" FILAMENT MEMORY

The cube-like crisscross of filaments feels oddly fragile in your hand, its intricate structure still cold to the touch. Silver tape on the side reads: OFF-SITE COPY. NOTE! This filament contains information that can be read using a radiocomputer.

You know, I *do* want to know.

MAINFRAME - Tiles on the cube are still smouldering, casting the framework in a soft glow. Virescent PLAY and PRINT keys shine on the keyboard.

2. Insert THE OFF-SITE COPY.

MAINFRAME - Like a smooth drawer, the filament slides into place. On the keyboard, the PLAY key starts blinking.

+5 XP

3. Press PLAY again.

MAINFRAME - The speaker comes to life, static seeps through the machine's planar magnetic driver. An old lady greets you, her voice sounds a hundred years old...

EAST-INSULINDIAN REPEATER STATION - "Good afternoon, Fortress Accident on Rue de Saint-Ghislaine, this is East-Insulindian Repeater Station 1."

"Please repeat, is this the off-site copy?"

2. "I might have a password for the off-site copy."

EAST-INSULINDIAN REPEATER STATION - "Good. Please repeat the password."

Say: "After life -- death."

EAST-INSULINDIAN REPEATER STATION - Her answer is short and sharp: "No, that's not it."

HALF LIGHT [Medium: Success] - What does she mean *that's not it*?! What's the password then???

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] - Maybe it's the second part of the leitmotiv you saw on the stained glass window.

Say: "After death -- life again."

EAST-INSULINDIAN REPEATER STATION - "Good, I've unlocked the off-site copy. After ending the call, please press PRINT to access the filament."

CONCEPTUALIZATION - *Ka-ching*!

EAST-INSULINDIAN REPEATER STATION - "Fortress Accident, is there anything else I can do for you today?"

3. "That's all for now." (Press OFF/SILENT.)

EAST-INSULINDIAN REPEATER STATION - "Thank you and good bye," the old lady's voice disappears along with the static.

MAINFRAME - Tiles on the cube are still smouldering, casting the framework in a soft glow. Virescent PLAY and PRINT keys shine on the keyboard.

4. Press PRINT.

MAINFRAME - It sounds like something cracks, before the piece of paper starts filling up with pure black ink.

INTERFACING [Medium: Success] - Something's broken. Machines aren't supposed to behave like this.

2. Remove THE OFF-SITE COPY.

MAINFRAME - The filament slides out of its glowing nest.

7. [Leave.]

Well, I think we've done enough for one day. Tomorrow we'll confront *The Entity*.

[revacholianpizzaagenda]

A few days ago @sukicool expressed interest in the geographical ramblings I implied here... I thought I'd have to cross-reference some things but as it turns out it's all already connected in this one screenshot 😅

A civilization spanning a super-isola, and its heart was in Iilmaraa. For the record we also have it on good (?) authority that the Semenese "DESCEND FROM THE AREOPAGITES OF ANCIENT PERIKARNASSIS".

When millennia later Ramout Karzai went to seek an audience with God, it was still in the Erg desert... was it where the Perikarnassian, too, found their calling? What did Ramout Karzai know about Elysium's forgotten antiquity? WHEN was Ramout Karzai, even? Speaking of which forgotten antiquity,

these footsteps of hers that "spelled the destruction of Iilmaraa"... I wonder what happened there. Are we talking about the general geographical area, where the destruction of Perikarnassis must have taken place at some point, and we already know that Dolores Dei was around somehow? Or was there a second destruction, later on, after the splitting of the isolas, when "Ile Marat" got its suspiciously French name and perhaps when "Mesque colonized it seven ways from Sunday"?

I think it's the former because there's precedent for calling Perikarnassis Iilmaraa: "God was apparently invented by some man named Pius in Iilmaraa sometime, certainly more than three thousand years ago". Besides, looking at the full quote, it's pretty definitively about Perikarnassis:

So, uhm. Things, and also stuff.

...I wish we knew what a "fleeing sea" is. Sounds fun.

[ladyglenda]

🔥 This is about as blatant as it gets!

Someone please explain to me why Donald Trump just participated in the wreath laying ceremony at Arlington for the 3rd anniversary of the Kabul Airport attack in Afghanistan???

They’re putting it right in everyone’s face. The REAL Commander in Chief.

🔗 https://apnews.com/video/donald-trump-afghanistan-kamala-harris-joe-biden-hamid-karzai-e4d1fedf7b604801b2c11893347632d3

🇺🇸🟨🇺🇸

[captain-price-unofficially]

A Danish soldier holds up a Danish flag to identify families during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan, 21 August 2021

[indecentpause]

A Playlist for Renee and Vi, From The Succession of Us

Iffy didn’t always go dumpster diving with Renee and Vi, and she didn’t that Friday, either. She was going to have a lot of homework to do over the weekend, and if she was going to be busy all day Saturday, she wouldn’t have enough time on Sunday to finish. She didn’t help cook later that night, either. But she was there, with Renee, bright and early at Vi’s door on Saturday morning. Vi’s parents were gracious enough to let them use the backyard, and right now Iffy could see the tops of brightly colored umbrellas poking out from behind the door leading into it. Mr. and Mrs. Karzai always let people come inside to the air conditioning if they got too hot, but, understandably, they were hesitant to invite a bunch of strangers inside their home. The door already had the sign taped on: Brunch guests, please knock on the backyard door, with an arrow pointing in the right direction. Vi pounced on Renee and Iffy when she opened the door, with a bright, “Good morning, my loves!” Instead of the bright violet hijab she wore to school, she was wearing a pastel lavender one, and a flowing pink dress over pale jeans. It was the most feminine Iffy had ever seen her dress. “Your outfit is really pretty,” she said. “Any occasion?” “Nope!” Vi laughed. “Just felt like being pretty.” “You’re always pretty,” Renee grinned. “Oh, shut up, you.” Vi planted a sloppy kiss on Renee’s mouth, then led them both inside.

-from The Succession of Us

blink 182 - the rock show // the subways - rock & roll queen - suburban legends - up all night // garbage -sex is not the enemy // beatrice eli - girls // le tigre - viz // icona pop - girlfriend // cake - comfort eagle // bis - kill yr boyfriend // the bouncing souls - you're so rad // choking victim - 500 channels // five iron frenzy - get your riot gear // green day - american idiot // bad religion - no control // anti-flag - war sucks, let's party! // the butchies - trouble // veronica - daddy issues // the queers - psycho over you // freezepop - i am not your gameboy // victorious cast feat. veronica justice & elizabeth gillies - take a hint // bikini kill - double dare ya

read The Succession of Us: ao3 wattpad