#even if i had to get way less ambitious than planned w my attacks but oh well. there's always next year

[tomaturtles]

Head in hands. I didn't manage to finish all my artfight revenges this year

[drawlfoy]

detention, retention, and draco malfoy being a little shit

masterlist request guidelines

pairing: draco x reader

request: no not really

summary: golden trio friend y/n y/l/n tries to extract information out of draco malfoy after being placed in detention together.

warnings: swearing, panic attack kinda stuff, just the dark war things that would come w having the task that draco does

a/n: ayo so i started this as a fic i was originally planning on writing in a week. i discontinued it bc i didn’t think anyone was that interested, but i’ve written for it on and off. it’s about 16k words right now standing, but i’m reposting this as a 2 part series. here are the first ~12k words....enjoy :) IMPORTANT: if you’re like “hey i started reading this in october why tf are you reposting the first two parts” just keep reading ok lmao i promise there’s more there’s about through part 6 in here hehe. i just wanted new readers to be able to pick up on it without being turned off by the fact that it was part 3. this will b e 2 parts and at least 20k words

word count: 11.6k

taglist: @gruffle1 @missmultifandommess @cleopatera @hahaboop @accio-rogers @geeksareunique @eltanin-malfoy @war-sword @cams-lynn @itsivyberry @ayo-cowbelly @nerd-domland @yesnerdsblog @shizarianathania @evanstanfanatic @strawberriesonsummer @hariosborn @night-ving @straightzoinked @imintoodeeptostop @naiomimoonshard @jejegu @ophelia-enthusiast @alwaysbeanunknownfan @nearly-memories @litty-dumb @callieclearwater @malfoy-wife15 @charlenasaxen @belladaises @fiantomartell

happy reading y’all

For legal purposes, the york pudding she lobbed at Pansy Parkinson’s head on Monday evening was simply meant to be a joke. She didn’t know that her aim was bad enough that it was going to get in Snape’s hair instead--honestly, it wasn’t even supposed to get past the Ravenclaw table, much less veer to the left to make a beeline for the professors--but no matter how much she tried to explain this to McGonagall, her sentence remained the same: detention every Friday. For two months.

Her life was ending for sure.

“I honestly don’t know what you were expecting,” Hermione told her as she gently wiped off the nib of her quill later that night in the common room. “Even if you had hit your mark, that’s still technically assault.”

“Did you even hear what she said to me? She told me that I looked like the type of kid that bit people in primary school,” complained Y/N. “I didn’t even think she knew what primary school was!”

Hermione snorted. “How long ago?”

“Two days. I’ve been waiting until there was something throwable on the dinner table.”

“How very analytic of you.”

“I’m going to hit you.”

“And you wonder why you’ve got detention.” Hermione tsk-ed at her, her face stone serious but her tone light hearted. “Maybe take this as an opportunity to, I don’t know, do your homework for once? So you won’t have to have a breakdown over the next Potion’s essay and beg me to write it for you?”

“I’m going to go to sleep and think terribly mean thoughts about you.”

“Have fun.”

~ 

Detention.

Something that Y/N wasn’t completely unfamiliar with--she’d done her time organizing Snape’s cabinets, just like every other Gryffindor--but it was different when it came to McGonagall. An impressive old lady, she thought that McGonagall saw something in her. She was always the first to chuckle at Y/N’s jokes and hesitated to reprimand her stupid behavior. And she never gave Y/N detention.

Until now, she supposed. 6th year was changing a lot of things--even their Potions professor--so McGonagall turning a new stone shouldn’t have been anything shocking.

At least, not as shocking as the first thing Y/N saw as she walked into her house head’s office.

“Malfoy?” she spat.

The platinum blonde didn’t even bother to look up from his desk.

“Miss Y/L/N,” Professor McGonagall chided. “I think we would all prefer if you restrained yourself from getting into any more physical altercations with Slytherins.”

She huffed, plopping down in the chair furthest away from that foul git and reaching for her satchel.

“I’ll be back in two hours,” said the elderly professor. “If I hear anything, and I mean anything, other than the sound of studying, consider your sentence doubled.”

With a swish of her robes, McGonagall was gone, leaving her with Malfoy. 

“So what’d you do to get in here, huh? Did the administration finally get a hold of that video of you licking Voldemort’s toes?”

“What the fuck does that mean?!” he snapped, whipping around to glare at her.

“‘s just a joke,” said Y/N. “Like--how everyone says your family houses him and everything--but whatever. I can tell it’s a sore spot.”

His gaze, never withering in intensity, remained trained on her face. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Apparently so. What’re you here for?”

He exhaled sharply. “If I tell you, will you shut up and let me think?”

“No promises, but maybe.”

“Late work. I forgot to turn in the Transfiguration exam last week.”

She made a tutting sound as she lazily shuffled through the crumpled parchment in her satchel. “I expected more from you. Aren’t you gonna ask me how I wound up here?”

“No. I am going to ask you to stop talking now, though.”

~

“That’s terribly unfortunate,” Hermione said over breakfast the next morning. Ron and Harry were nervously chit chatting at the other side of the table over the Saturday Quidditch game against Hufflepuff--supposedly it was supposed to be quite a high stakes match. Not like Y/N cared much, though.

“Yeah! And the worst part was that he won’t even tease anymore. Like, he just sits there all broody and woe is me. We’re all witnessing our nation’s descent into war--he’s not special!”

“Who are you talking about?” asked Harry.

“Oh, just Malfoy,” said Y/N. “We have detention together with McGonagall. He’s such a nasty little greaseball, don’t you think? I mean, look at him right now, glowering over his cereal.”

“Wait! That’s it!”

“What’s it, Harry?” Hermione asked.

“It’s genius, really,” he said. “Y/N has to spend time with him alone every week, and we know that something is up with him. Malfoy is absolutely a Death Eater and has connections to You-Know-Who, but I just need to find a way to prove it.”

“I vaguely forecast where this is going, and I hate it already.”

“Listen, Y/N. It’s not for that long, and it’s for the health of the wizarding world. If you just get to know him--”

“Ick!”

“If you just get to know him, maybe get him to trust you and find out his secrets...we’d finally have enough to turn him in and throw him out of Hogwarts for good.”

“Is that really necessary, Harry?” Ginny butted in from her seat further down next to Dean. “Malfoy’s probably just exhausted like the rest of you. 6th year is difficult, and we have no solid evidence that he’s a Death Eater. I’m sure being stuck in a room with him for 2 hours is hard enough without pretending to be nice to him.”

“But what if Harry’s right?” said Y/N. “What if he is actually a Death Eater? What if he’s an active danger to the student body?”

“Exactly!” The joy written across Harry’s face at the prospect of someone else finally agreeing was infectious. “So will you?”

“Er…” She dragged her spoon across the top layer of her porridge. “In theory, sure. In actuality, I’m not sure how I could do it. Malfoy doesn’t want anything to do with me, either.”

“Love potion?” offered Ron.

“I don’t care how much of a prat he is, I’m not roofying him.”

“I rarely agree with you, Y/N, but I think you’re right. If you want to do this, you need to get him to trust you for real.”

“Your back-handed compliment skills never disappoint, Hermione. Do you think you could help me out with a plan?”

A slow smile spread across the girl’s face as she nodded. “That’s my strong suit.”

The plan they laid out over the remainder of the day was ambitious but at least do-able. Each week was split into different subtasks, the end goal being a somewhat tentative friendship between the two. 

“If you can flirt with him and get him to have a crush on you without scaring him off, you’d be in the best possible position,” Hermione told her as they walked back from the Quidditch pitch among the screaming Gryffindor fans. They’d won--yet again. “Obviously I don’t foresee that being likely, but if you pull it off somehow he’d probably be willing to tell you anything. The fact that you’re a pureblood is going to carry you through this whole ordeal. He’ll at least be accepting of your existence in the wizarding community.”

The bitter edge in Hermione’s tone made Y/N’s blood boil. There was no reason for Malfoy to be as prejudiced as he was--he’d spent his adolescence in Hermione’s academic dust. She was obviously smarter than him. 

“You got it, ‘Mione,” she said. Her voice barely carried over the cheers of her peers as they ascended the steps to the common room. “We’ll take this little ferret down. I can’t wait.”

“Don’t get too cocky, now.”

The Gryffindor after-party was crazy...per usual. The charmed self-filling goblets, the blasted playlist of Wizpop pumping through the air, and the buzzing energy of the room was giving Y/N a giant headache. She stood with Hermione and Harry by the edge of the crowd, watching Ron get hoisted up on the shoulders of the chasers. 

“No wonder the Slytherins think we’re Neanderthals,” Y/N mused. For once, Hermione didn’t respond. “Hermione? Is everything okay?”

The second she turned away to look at her best friend, gasps and whistles filled the room. She whipped back just in time to see Lavender Brown, a sweet but slightly ditzy girl in their year, pull away from a kiss with Ron.

“Oh shi--Hermione!”

Harry and Y/N shared a glance before darting after the witch--who had impressively already made it to the door. 

“Hermione, wait!” Y/N called as they jogged after her, throwing open the common room entrance and finding her sat by the tapestry on the other side of the hall, knees to her chest.

“‘Mione, what’s wrong?” asked Harry.

“Don’t be daft, Harry,” said Y/N. “You saw exactly what the rest of us did.”

“I don’t understa--”

“Harry.” Her voice was taut. “I know you’re just trying to help, but I think that it might be best if you let us be. Go back and enjoy the party.”

He gave her a tight, grateful smile before darting back through the door. Y/N wasted no more time in walking over to Hermione and throwing her arms around her shoulders.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, hugging her tight. Hermione made no move to detach them, so she continued. “Ron is an idiot. You deserve so much better--your first kiss was Viktor fucking Krum, after all. You’re hot stuff and this place is just unfortunately running dry of men who are impressive enough for you. Once you’re out of here and working in the Ministry, you’re gonna have the time of your life with men actually in your league.”

Hermione managed a sniffly laugh as she wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “It’s just so fucking embarrassing, you know. Like, I have a crush on him because I think he understands me and I smelled him in my Amortentia and I thought he’d like me back, but…” She hiccuped. “Then he goes off and kisses Lavender Brown, of all people. There’s nothing particularly wrong with her or anything, but she’s so different...I’m so bookish, and she’s so girly and everything I’m not…”

Y/N took the opportunity to tuck a lock of Hermione’s hair behind her ear as she listened.

“And it can’t help but make me think--was I ever anything to him but a friend? If the girl he ends up choosing is the opposite of me?”

“Girly, don’t think like that,” murmured Y/N. “He’s a teenage boy. They don’t think of love the way that we do--to them it’s a game of availability, not of choice. At least for Ronald. You intimidate him, and by extension, you’re not available.”

“That shouldn’t matter!”

“You’re right. It shouldn’t.” Y/N drew a long breath. “So you should find someone who always has you as their first choice--someone who isn’t intimidated by your intellect. They’re out there. I promise.”

Hermione managed a shaky smile. “Thanks, Y/N. I mean it. Do you mind if I have some alone time? I don’t think I’m ready to go back to the party but I just want some quiet.”

“Of course. Let me know if you need me,” she said, brushing herself off and making to walk down the hall.

“You’re not going back to the party?”

“Nah. It hurts my head and I want fresh air. If I’m not back here in a half hour, assume that I’ve been kidnapped.”

With that, she started her walk. She wasn’t planning on going on a long stroll--there was a small balcony that she often went to when she needed to clear her head. It was beautiful, especially on a snowy night like this.

But the walk was creepy.

There was only one way in and out--a narrow, damp hallway that had absolutely no light fixtures. If Y/N really wanted to, she could cast a quick lumos, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to see what lived on the walls. The stairs were steep, too, but she managed to bound up all 40 of them in record time. 

“Who’s there?”

The sudden voice ripped a scream out of Y/N’s throat as she reached the top, catching a glimpse of the shadowy figure at the edge of the balcony that spoke. She clasped her hand over her mouth and she crept forward to the opening, getting a better look at the person that was in her secret spot.

The clouds shifted in the sky to allow more moonlight to cast a soft glow on Malfoy’s face, hardened with irritation.

“Malfoy?” Y/N asked, rather dumbly.

“What stellar observational skills,” he drawled. 

She felt her cheeks grow hot. “What are you doing here? This is part of the Gryffindor tower. Shouldn’t you be...I don’t know...playing hide and seek with the sewer rats in the dungeons?”

“Very funny.” His flat tone exposed the fact that he did not, in fact, find it very funny. “There’s no rule barring me from coming up here.”

“But why? This is my spot!”

“Because I wanted to get out. Now, I was here first, so unless you want your detention extended, I suggest you leave.”

Y/N bit the fiery comebacks on the tip of her tongue as the memories of her plan with Hermione began floating back to her. 

Week 1 -- Hold one neutral, civil conversation with Malfoy.

“I’ll be quiet. You won’t even know I’m here,” Y/N decided upon. leaning up against the balcony. The rogue snowflakes that made it past the overhanging roof melted on her cheeks. 

“That isn’t a suggestion,” said Malfoy. “I’m demanding you leave.”

“Beautiful night, isn’t it?” Y/N asked, pointedly ignoring his words. “I’ve always loved the snow. It’s so quiet.”

“And it would be even quieter if you left.”

“Aren’t you the conversationalist?” said Y/N.

“If you don’t leave, I will hex you,” Malfoy told her through gritted teeth. 

“I just love how the moonlight reflects off of the snow,” continued Y/N. “It’s so...pure.”

“Please leave.”

On her walk back down the dank stairwell, she allowed herself a little smile. 

Task 1? Technically done.

~ 

The first week went largely as planned. Malfoy was cold and certainly suspicious of her, but he wasn’t completely venomous when Y/N asked where he got his quill from in Potions. It was silver, charmed to shimmer with flecks of forest green. He told her Barnaby’s in France, and that was that. She walked away from his table with all of her limbs attached. Perhaps that was all the progress she was going to make in the next few weeks, but the task at hand certainly made the prospect of her lost Friday afternoons more bearable. 

Harry was going completely batty, rambling on about how Malfoy was behind the mysterious cursed objects that had been floating about the castle without explanation. 

“And why would Malfoy bring cursed objects to Hogwarts if he has aspirations other than being expelled?” Hermione would ask over their books.

“You don’t understand, Hermione! You girls need to be careful walking around at night--especially you, Y/N. I don’t want you going missing after detention because of that slimeball.”

Y/N always gave him a laugh, berating him for his slight misogynistic commentary and turning back to whatever her task was, but the truth was that she was worried for him. The mental weight of the impending war and the fact that he couldn’t do anything about it was certainly getting too difficult for him to bear. It was heartbreaking to see the vivacious boy she’d grown up with crumble under the responsibilities of something he should never have to worry about in the first place.

Friday came much sooner than expected, and Y/N reluctantly left her friends in the common room to trek to McGonagall’s office. The walk was frigid and the wind bit at her cheeks as she rounded the last outdoor hall.

Why was this castle so dark?

A thump behind her made her jump, and Harry’s words came floating back to her. 

Remember all those cursed objects? What if there’s someone just...stalking the school grounds, waiting for someone like me to snatch?

She shivered, throwing herself at the office door and slamming it behind her.

“Miss Y/L/N,” Professor McGonagall greeted, her eyebrows raised in amusement. “Something giving you trouble?”

“No, Professor,” she answered, setting her bag down on the desk next to Malfoy. He sent her a curious look as well. “It’s just cold outside.”

She chuckled. “I need to go speak to Headmaster Dumbledore. I expect that, upon my return, you both are in one piece and alive.”

“I’m not sure if I’m the one who needs to be given that speech,” said Y/N, bored and testing the waters.

“She’s right, Professor,” added Malfoy. “There’s no projectiles here.”

McGonagall exhaled a long, shaky breath before brushing herself off. “Please. Behave yourselves.”

“You got it, boss,” she said as she watched her Professor walk out the door. “So, Malfoy. How was your week?”

“I don’t know what you’re up to, but I’d way prefer if you didn’t speak to me,” he said, refusing to make eye contact.

“I’m not up to anything! We’re in detention together and, I dunno, since I see you sometimes at balls, I thought it’d be nice to be on good terms.”

“Good terms?” He scoffed. “You’re a Gryffindor. I’d rather you be a bloody Hufflepuff.”

“How about neutral terms?”

Even though he wasn’t looking at her, she could catch a glimpse of him rolling his eyes. “If neutral terms mean you being quiet, then, yes. Please.”

“I’ll be plenty quiet. After I hear about your opinion on what happened in Potions today with Brown and Weasley. When Snape yelled at them for holding hands.”

He let out a sharp sigh. “Believe it or not, I actually have better things to do than keep up with whatever stuff your house does.”

“But…?” Y/N pressed. She may not’ve spent her time at Hogwarts as Malfoy’s best friend, but she had grown up with the boy, and she could tell when he was holding back.

He stared blankly at her.

“Come on. I’m literally the only person in my house who’ll openly admit that they’re disgusted by that dynamic. I’m begging you.”

She wasn’t sure if she was imagining it, but she thought she saw a flicker of amusement dance across his face for a moment. “Your house sounds more like a cult than a student group.”

“Oh, says the one from Slytherin,” said Y/N. 

“We only act like that because our families are close. What’s your excuse? Hormones and Quidditch culture?”

“Touché.” As much as she wanted to fight back, she bit her tongue. Whatever she was doing was making progress, and quicker progress than she was expecting. Her next task was to make him laugh, and she was emboldened by the fact that she could potentially be able to kill two birds with one stone. 

They sat in silence for a little bit, but this time, it was a comfortable silence. Malfoy wasn’t staring at the clock on the wall or rolling his eyes at her every move, so she had time to plot.

On one hand, she could make a fool of herself--drop her inkwell, say something stupid in class, fall down the stairs--but she had a sneaking suspicion that her sorry attempts at slapstick humor wouldn’t land well with Draco anymore. He’d become so serious lately, so solemn. This was the most light hearted she’d seen him, even compared with how he acted with the rest of his Slytherin lackeys. 

On the other, she could try to sell out her friends. She could confide in him how “big” Hermione’s teeth were (they weren’t even big) or tell him that Ron smelled of eggs (true, but that was a low blow). Something told her that this would be much more successful, but she wasn’t willing to turn to that so quickly--she was already a week ahead as it was. 

“What is it?” 

Malfoy’s bored drawl cut through her flurried thoughts. Her cheeks turned pink as she blinked, noticing that she’d been staring at him for far too long. “Nothing. Sorry. I just spaced out.”

“Sure,” he mumbled, giving her another suspicious look before turning back to his work. “Can you maybe space out somewhere other than my face?”

“Where’s your vanity, Malfoy?” she pressed as she leaned back in her chair, hair swinging over the back. 

“Shut up,” he snapped. She could tell that whatever connection they’d had in the fleeting moments beforehand was being burnt by the second, but her embarrassment and pride drove her forward.

“Merlin, what’s got you so wound up?” she prompted, noting how deliciously unraveled he looked at this. “Where’s my cool, collected Slytherin?”

He slammed hands on his desk at this, whipping around to glare at her. “What’s your angle, Y/L/N?”

“What?”

“Why are you bothering me?”

“Because I want to.” She beamed.

Malfoy ran his fingers through his hair, mussing up the usual neat manner in which it normally laid on his head. “Compelling. What do you want from me?”

“What do I want…?” She tilted her head at him, narrowing her eyes. “What?”

“You never talk to me,” he explained. “Obviously, I prefer it like that. I can’t help but wonder why suddenly you want to be making small talk. So, what is it you want from me?”

“Malfoy,” she said. “I think you’re a spoiled prick who thinks far too highly of himself and drives me insane. But I also think that you’re funnier than what my friends give you credit for. Granted, you’ve always been annoying, but I don’t want anything from you. I just want to, I dunno, make these next few months less insufferable.” Somehow the lie slipped through her teeth easier than any of her previous bluffs. 

He frowned, his mouth opening once before firmly screwing shut into a scowl. “Oh.”

“No offense, Malfoy, but what else can you offer me other than your dazzling personality?” she teased. “You know my family. I don’t need to blackmail you to pay for jewelry I’ve had my eye on or anything.”

He scoffed. “As if I’d say yes.”

“Exactly my point. It’d be fucking weird. Merlin, I’m not trying to butter you up to buy out Borgin & Burkes for me. Do I give off gold-digger vibes? Is that what this is about?”

“Fucking hell.” Malfoy turned to her in disbelief. “Do you ever shut up?”

“Answer my question. Or better yet, pull out your wallet. Wait, did I say that out loud?” She mimed surprise and covered her mouth. “Oh no! What will my mother say now that I’ve squandered my last chance of hitching you? There’s no way I can go home for Christmas break now.”

He rolled his eyes so hard she found herself worried for a moment that they were going to just permanently get stuck in the back of his head. “Hate to break it to you, but you didn’t really have a shot to begin with.”

Ouch.

She huffed and dramatically flopped over the back of her chair, hoping he couldn’t see that she’d flinched. “So you don’t think I’m pretty??” 

“Y/L/N,” he snapped, his voice a low warning. “Can I please just work? What is with you today?”

Y/N sent him a sour look before giving her Charms work another look. Malfoy was awfully quiet, and when she snuck any glances at him later on, he was angled to face away from her. 

Why did she feel like such shit all of a sudden? She cataloged the past events, trying to pinpoint the exact moment that her stomach dropped. It all made sense when the words “You didn’t really have a shot to begin with” echoed around her head once again. She’d failed Harry. She’d failed Hermione. There was no way that she was going to be able to get him to reveal his secrets now--it’s not like he was confiding in even his closest friends as Harry made apparent when he explained how vague his statements were to his fellow Slytherins on the train. Her only chance would’ve been to somehow get him to fall for her, and that wasn’t going...great. And it had been a pipedream to begin with.

When McGonagall swished back into the classroom to dismiss them, Y/N shot out of there without even looking at Malfoy again. It felt like something was lodged in her throat and she was not going to cry in front of him. No, no. She had to make it to Hermione to tell her what was going on. 

“Y/L/N?” 

Malfoy’s voice made her pause in her flee as she nearly rounded the corner in front of her, but she refused to look back. It was far enough away that it was possible she didn’t hear him.

“Wait!”

She was up the stairs and speed walking as fast as her legs could carry her to the Gryffindor tower before he even saw which way she went.

~

“I don’t think you understand,” Y/N wailed by the fire as Hermione rubbed her shoulders and Harry sat awkwardly perched on the couch. “I can’t do this. The only way this was going to work was if he had a crush on me, and I don’t think he ever will. I fucked it up! The one time you guys need me, I fuck it up! I let you down!”

Hermione’s left hand stopped its rubbing to rest firmly on her shoulder. “Please don’t be upset. You didn’t let us down. Plus, you’re only, what...two weeks in? You don’t need him to like you to make it work. Just getting him to trust you will be enough, and you’re good at that.”

“I don’t think so,” continued Y/N. “Harry said that he wasn’t even that open on the train when he overheard him talking to all of his friends. And those are purebloods that he likes! That he’s trusted and known for years and years! I’m a friend of you guys, and he knows it. I think he’d figure it out quick.”

“We should take every chance we can get,” said Harry from his spot a few feet away, his eyes lazy and unfocused on the fire crackling in front of them. “You won’t let us down if you can’t get anything, Y/N, you know that! But if you got anything from him, it’d be incredible. It’s a win-win. I don’t understand why you’re so upset.”

“I’m not upset,” she said, her tone becoming defensive. “I just...don’t want to mess this up. I know how much it’d mean if I succeeded.”

“So just try!” Hermione said. “There’s nothing wrong with it. I’m sorry he was kind of mean to you today, but I don’t think that should bother you too much. He should be more afraid of what you’d say if you didn’t care about being a good person.”

“Fucking right on there,” she said, wiping away the frustrated tears. “If I was honest with him, he’d leave crying. He should be grateful that I’m taking this bet so I actually have to be nice to him.”

“That’s the spirit.” Harry leaned over to smack her back like he did his Quidditch teammates after a winning match. 

After they’d parted their ways with Harry, Hermione and Y/N made their way slowly up the stairwell to the girls’ dorms. 

“Y/N?” Hermione asked, breaking the silence. 

“Yeah?”

“Do you think, er…” She paused. “Do you think you were really upset about failing us today? Or was it something else?”

“What do you mean?” Y/N furrowed her eyebrows. “I don’t see what else it would be.”

“I’m sorry,” responded the bright witch. “Forget I ever asked. It was a stupid thing to wonder about.”

“Weirdo,” she teased as she waved her a goodnight and made her way to her dorm.

The next morning, Y/N busied herself with revising her Charms essay over her breakfast--a cup of tea and a half-buttered piece of toast--while Hermione leaned over her shoulder, nodding or grimacing at the corrections she made. 

“Did you work during detention? Like, at all?”

“‘Mione,” moaned Y/N. “It’s too early for this. I don’t want a lecture. I just couldn’t focus.”

Her warm brown eyes narrowed as they bore into Y/N’s face. “Why were you distracted?”

“Oh, I, uh…” She stumbled over her words as Hermione drew closer. “Merlin, Hermione. I told you last night. I just felt like I was letting you all down.”

“Mhm,” was all she got in response before her best friend tilted her head back down to the parchment in front of her. 

Y/N sat, completely puzzled. What was Hermione on about? She’d been straightforward with what was hurting her--she didn’t want to mess up the only task the Golden Trio had ever given her--and, even if she hadn’t been, Hermione was smart enough to deduce things for herself. So what was she thinking about?

Her eyes drifted over to the Slytherin table where the usual 6th year pureblood gang loitered about, drinking black coffee and sulking--but Malfoy was not to be seen. She jumped when her eyes met Parkinson, her dark eyes burning into her soul as a deep scowl was written across her face.

“Malfoy, what the fuck do you want?” Ron’s voice pulled her back to reality to see him glaring somewhere behind her.

“I wasn’t here to talk to you,” a familiar voice drawled. 

She turned to see Malfoy standing behind her, a sneer written all across his stupidly pretty face.

“Miss me already?” asked Y/N as she raised an eyebrow and cocked her head to the side. 

“For fuck’s sake, stop doing that,” he mumbled, reaching into his pocket and throwing a box at her. “You forgot your quill. I took the liberty of properly storing it, because it seems like you lot like to just throw them in your bag. Makes me physically ill to watch.”

“Oh.” Y/N studied the intricate box in her hands before tucking it away in her knapsack. “Thanks? I guess?”

He nodded curtly, contorting his face into one last scowl to send to Ron before turning and leaving,

“So,” Hermione began, cutting her omelet at a much brisker pace, “I think we need to have a little chat. About...all of this.” 

“Why?” 

“Not right now,” she said, her voice low and her eyes flicking at Ron and Harry sitting across from them. “I don’t think it’d benefit us for them to hear.” 

“Ok?” She cautiously took a bite out of her toast and continued staring Hermione down. “You’re scaring me.”

“It’s...I don’t know. I thought I was crazy for thinking this, but it seems like we need to talk about it anyways. For this little mission of yours to work, we need to be totally open and honest with each other.”

“Sure.” Y/N took another bite. “I honestly have no clue what’s got you so on edge, though.”

“Who’s on edge?” Harry asked, leaning over the table and stealing the croissant on Y/N’s plate. 

“Hey!” she exclaimed. “Do you not see the entire plate of them over there?”

He laughed, sending her an easy grin and dunking a piece into the hot chocolate in his mug. “Finders keepers. Say, Y/N, are you busy next weekend? Ron and Lavender are going to Madame Puddingfoot’s together, and I know Hermione isn’t going to want to take a weekend off studying to go to Hogsmeade, so I thought that maybe we could go cause some trouble at the Cauldron.”

“If you stop stealing my food we can talk about it,” replied Y/N, the corners of her lips tugging up into a grin. 

“Deal.”

Hermione tugged at her arm. “I just realized I need to get something out of my room before we watch the Quidditch game. Will you come with me, Y/N?”

“Sure!” said Y/N. “Gee, I’m rolling in invitations today.”

Once they exited the dining hall, though, it immediately became evident that they were not actually heading up to the dorms. Hermione dragged her into the nearest bathroom before casting a quick silencing charm.

“Myrtle! Are you in here?” Only when she was sure silence was the only response to her question, she seemed satisfied to turn to Y/N and begin talking. “When were you going to tell me that you have a thing for Malfoy?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Y/N felt the heat that had risen to her cheeks from the last quill-encounter re-emerge.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” said Hermione. “Are you seriously going to expect me to believe that you nearly sobbed over some random pureblood git telling you you never had a chance with him because it might slow down your progress with helping us? Actually? I’ve seen you look more ecstatic about hearing that your dear granny passed away.”

“To be fair, she had really good life insurance,” Y/N cut in. “And she was an old hag. Never had a nice thing to say to me.”

“Life insurance or no life insurance...you can’t seriously expect me to believe that you were just upset about not being able to help us as much. That was ridiculous. I don’t buy it. And the way you blushed like crazy when he came over to talk to you--the way you try and pretend like you can flirt...please. Y/N, it’s clear as day. I know you, and I know you have a crush on him.”

“Hermione!” hissed Y/N. “You have no clue what you’re talking about!”

“Yes, I think I do,” she pushed. “And you need to be honest with me if you want to be of any help right now.”

Her bossiness lit a fire of rage in Y/N’s chest, but she sucked in a deep breath, shutting her eyes before releasing it. “Believe me when I say I haven’t ever acknowledged any feelings I may or may not have towards him.”

“Ok.” Her face softened. “I know it might take time, but I honestly do think I’m right. Please just...be careful. This is a really odd situation to get caught up in if you actually have feelings for the other person. You’re trying to manipulate him, for Merlin’s sake.”

“And if I have these feelings for him, I’ve done a pretty damn good job of suppressing them for however long they’ve been here.” 

Hermione sighed. “That’s true. I’m just saying that spending this much time with him is probably only going to make things worse. Will you please tell me if anything changes between the two of you?”

“Anything changes?” Y/N’s voice was dripping in disbelief. “You’re joking. Even if I was obsessed with him I don’t think there’s ever a chance of hell in anything ‘changing’ between us. He said it himself.”

“You know what I mean, Y/N,” responded Hermione. “Just promise me, ok?”

“Ok,” said Y/N. “I promise.”

That seemed to satiate Hermione as she nodded approvingly at her friend. “I think it goes without saying that Ron and Harry shouldn’t hear about this.”

“There’s nothing to hear about, but yes.” She shuffled her feet before meeting Hermione’s eyes again. “Er, I’m sorry for this being a weird question, but would you mind coming along with me and Harry to Hogsmeade? I don’t really see him like...that...and I don’t want to read into it too much and reject him if he is doing it just platonically, but just in case. Y’know.”

“Sure,” said Hermione, even though her face took on that curious expression yet again. “Anyways, you actually did forget something--you’re not wearing a single piece of Gryffindor colors for our game today. You should probably run back to your dorm before Harry and Ron notice.”

After they said their goodbyes, Y/N found herself turning over the things Hermione had said to her in her head. Did she like Malfoy? No, no fucking way. But a part of her really did think he was funny. And of course it was natural to feel rejected when anyone insinuates that they’d never consider you as a romantic interest without jest. 

Once she’d made it up to her room and grabbed a few scarves, Y/N made to put her red cloak into her satchel. Her fingers ghosted over the box that Malfoy had given her and scoffed once she saw the Malfoy crest engraved into the rich wood. 

Narcissistic snot.

Her curiosity got the better of her as she reached over to open up the elaborately decorated box. What met her was not just one quill but two--one of which was most certainly not her own. 

She took them both out, tossing the old one in a pile with her other trusty familiar white feather quills and picked up the other one. It looked familiar--identical to the quill that she’d complimented Malfoy on in Potions about a week ago. Butterflies began to flutter like crazy in her stomach as she turned it over in her hand, watching the gray and green glitter together and the magic sparkles cast a gentle light over her bed. She generally avoided dipping into her family’s pockets to get school supplies any more than she had to--it’s not like it made her friends feel good about themselves when they were reminded how rich her family was--but this might be what she could consider to be an exception. She hadn’t even liked his quill all that much when she first saw it in Potions--but it was one of those things that was so noticeable that it made sense to compliment him. 

She gave it one last look before tucking it back away into the elaborately decorated box. Perhaps she had spoken too soon when she’d told Hermione all hope was lost. 

~ 

When Monday morning Potions class with the Slytherins rolled around, Y/N wasted no time. Malfoy was alone--even his Slytherin lackeys seemed to know not to bother him. Just what she needed.

“Malfoy,” she greeted, setting her bag down on his table and looking him dead on. He raised to meet her eyes, his eyebrow raised.

“Can I help you?”

“I just wanted you to know that I also really like your immense fortune,” she said. “And your manor.”

“Well, a lot of people do,” he mumbled as he looked away to dig through something in his bag. If she didn’t know any better, she would’ve thought he was blushing.

“I’m just letting you know,” she continued. “In case you were wanting to give them away. It worked for the quill, so I thought, well, why not?”

He exhaled, a deep and annoyed sound escaping his lips as he rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. “I knew I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You really didn’t have to.”

“I was getting sick of it,” he told her. “I never can stick with one quill for too long, and I thought it’d be a shame to toss it. I thought it’d be better to be charitable--it’s not like your family could get an appointment at Barnaby’s if they tried.”

“Hey!” Y/N said indignantly. “You don’t know that!”

“I’ve heard your parents try to speak French,” he said. “If you’re anything like them, you'll be barred from ever entering the country.”

“Malfoy!” 

His lips turned up into a smile, a soft laugh escaping his lips. Y/N suppressed the urge to grin in return. Task 3? Done. “What?”

“I can’t even argue with you,” she said. “It’s tragic.”

She stared at the empty stool next to him, wondering if she should just take the leap and sit with him. Malfoy seemed unbothered by her presence as he opened up his Potions book and set it next to his cauldron. “Do you want a partner?” The words left her lips before she could stop them.

He cast her a curious look before glancing at the empty stool. “It depends. Are you going to be annoying?”

She gasped in faux-offense. “What makes you think I could ever be annoying?”

“On that note, I think you better get back to Potter.” He motioned with his head towards the side of the room where most of her Gryffindor friends were chatting. Harry was staring at her, his fists clenched by his side.

Y/N smirked and sent him a wink. 

“On that note,” she said, careful to imitate Malfoy’s drawl and sending him a smug grin, “Maybe I better sit here.”

“Hm.” He awarded her one more uninterested look before rolling up his sleeves and setting out the ingredients for the potion they were brewing--Amortentia. 

She tried not to make it too obvious that she was staring at his left arm, but there was nothing on it like Harry had told her. It was just pure, unblemished pale skin that shimmered under the light. Before he could catch her looking, she quickly sat down and started pulling out her own things. After a short pause, she decided to take out the silver quill. She’d left his box back in her room--she wouldn’t be caught dead with something that had the Malfoy crest on it--but she’d wrapped it in a pouch with her own family’s emblem on the front, shimmering in gold and red.

“Why don’t you just buy your own charmed quills?” asked Malfoy after they had chopped all of the gillweed. 

“You already know. We’re an abomination to the French. We aren’t allowed entry.”

“That’s not what I mean.” His tone was meant to read as exasperated, but his words still seemed good-natured.

“I...well.” She frowned. She’d never confessed this to anyone, but she supposed that Malfoy wasn’t going to find a way to use it against her. “I don’t like to flaunt my family wealth. I think it makes people, at least in Gryffindor, like me less. I learned that pretty early on.”

He hummed something in response before sliding all the gillweed into the cauldron, turning the clear liquid into a bubbling forest green. 

“Why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden?” she asked. 

He took his time finishing the note he was jotting down before he answered. “I’m not being nice. It’s just called being civil. You said it yourself, we see each other at balls sometimes.”

“We probably won’t anymore, though,” she mused. 

Malfoy’s eyebrows shot up, but his voice remained low and steady. “No. I suppose that we probably won’t. Is your family part of the Order?”

“Hm. Are you a Death Eater?” she asked brazenly. He had no business asking her something like that, and he knew it. Especially not with his family connections.

“What do you think?” he drawled, waving his bared left arm in front of her face.

“Bullshit. That doesn’t mean anything after we learned Glamour spells last year.”

“Guess you’ll just have to trust me, then,” he responded, focusing intently on the bubbling liquid in front of him instead of her face. 

“I guess so,” she replied. The weight of her Glamour comment began to sink in--she was right, after all. How had she not thought of it before? 

But he was right when he told her she just had to trust him. Could she? Y/N rested her chin in the palm of her propped hand as she watched him work. A piece of disobedient moonbeam blonde hair dangled over his forehead as he diced up the unicorn tail, his eyebrows furrowed in focus.

“Is this why you want to be my partner?” he finally asked after a few moments of silence. “So you can just stare at me while I do all the work?”

“There’s the vain Draco I know,” she said, grinning as she leaned over to punch his shoulder. 

He rolled his eyes again, scooting out of arm's reach before flipping back to Amortentia in his book. “You’re insufferable. And it’s Malfoy to you.”

“Fine, fine, Malfoy,” said Y/N. “What do you want me to do, then?”

He shoved his cutting board towards her, the half-diced unicorn tail staring up at her. “Finish dicing this and then stir it in. 9 times clockwise. I did almost all of the work, but it should be finished after that.”

Y/N sent him another glare before doing as he said. The glittering quill kept catching her attention from the corner of her eye, and she couldn’t help but notice that Malfoy was writing with just a plain white quill for the time being. HE really did just give it to me. 

After the final ingredients were diced, she began to stir, each rotation around the cauldron turning the potion to a different color. It began as the bubbling green, then a deep sea blue, then a royal purple, a crimson blood red, a glimmering gold--before settling into a pale silver.

“Wow. It’s beautiful,” she breathed. “It’s like...liquid starlight.”

“All thanks to me,” said Malfoy. “You didn’t even have to crush the Mandrake root.”

“You’re such a gentleman, Malfoy.” Her voice dripped in fake sincerity. “So, what do you smell?”

Y/N was expecting him to scowl at her and tell her that it wasn’t any of her business, but he actually leaned over the cauldron and shut his eyes. 

“I’ve never been good at explaining what things smell like.” 

“Fair.”

Once he leaned back, she took his place, shutting her eyes and breathing in a tendril of the beautiful potion. “Whoa.”

“What’s it for you?”

“I don’t...know,” she admitted. “It’s not something I can describe note by note. It kind of reminds me of something, though.”

“Something with Potter, I presume?” he said, casually twirling his generic white quill around his fingers.

“No,” she answered, surprised at how honest she was being. “It’s…I’m trying to think. Er, it’s very lavish. It reminds me of when I was younger and my parents would drag me to galas and balls and whatnot.” 

He stared at her in silence.

“What about you? Does it remind you of anything?”

“Yeah.” Malfoy reached forward to put a lid on the cauldron, effectively shutting out the steam from reaching either of them.

“Ooh, have you figured it out yet?” she teased, crossing her legs and turning to face him head on. “Let me guess. Is it someone like…”

She paused, a wicked smile stretching across her face. “Oh my god, is it Hermione? Or Luna? Or...help me out here!”

“No.” His voice was sour. 

“Ah, it’s Parkinson then, isn’t it? Tell her I’m sorry for throwing food at her if you ever have the chance. Make sure to add the part where I’m more sorry that I missed.” 

“Y/L/N!”

“It’s okay. I’d be a little let down, too.”

“Can you please just…” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Please just stop. I haven’t figured it out. Okay? Happy now?”

“I’ll leave you alone,” said Y/N. “Under one condition. You give me a hint. I’ve given you everything I know! This isn’t fair.”

“This doesn’t have to be fair,” he hissed.

Y/N kept the easy smile plastered on her face while she waited, her eyebrows raised in anticipation.

“You’re not going to let up until I tell you, are you?”

“You’d be right on that,” she said, sugary sweet.

“Fine. It’s something kind of floral.” 

“How descriptive,” she snorted as she slumped back in her stool, thinking hard. Where had she smelled it before? Y/N shut her eyes, leaning her head back and trying to immerse herself into the memory that had surfaced. It smelled like grandeur, like an open ballroom full of guests wearing expensive perfumes. She could feel spinning, spinning like she was with a dance partner. Who was it? She couldn’t quite remember--the last ball she’d been to had been years ago--but after she leaned forward and smelled the Amortentia once more time, she came to a conclusion.

“I had to have danced with him at a gala before,” she announced to Malfoy, who was looking quite unimpressed. “So I know it’s no one from Gryffindor.”

“Interesting,” was all he said before turning to his parchment and jotting something down.

Late that night, while Y/N was settling into bed, a strange idea struck her. Sure that the thought that was nagging her was completely fruitless, she had no trouble with reaching into her desk and pulling out the Malfoy box. She just had to check if she wanted to sleep well.

Here goes.

She closed her eyes, imagining the expensive scent of her Amortentia. Then she opened it, stuck her nose into the fabric, and breathed in.

Well, fuck. 

~

The internal debate going through Y/N the next day at the breakfast table was intense. On one hand, she really, really wanted to just tell Hermione that Malfoy had been in her Amortentia and she was completely fucked, but on the other…

She glanced at the witch next to her as she methodically sliced her toast into perfect, equivalent squares before dunking them in jam. Y/N liking Malfoy was not going to fit into her toast cubes. If she said anything, she would lose her excuse to talk to her about him. And her excuse to try and get close with him. 

Perhaps I can figure it out tomorrow. 

When tomorrow came, she still hadn’t made progress. Y/N was beginning to think that her so called “revelation” after they brewed Amortentia was truly just complete and utter bullshit. So what that his quill box smelled like it--all rich people kind of smelled the same at some points, and so did their houses. There was a reason why she couldn’t immediately pin the scent to anything--it wasn’t like she even knew what Malfoy smelled like.

But the truth remained that she was still attracted to someone who happened to be a rich Slytherin--so naturally, her mind began to wander. There’s no way it was Zabini--his mother owned a fragrance line, and she would’ve instantly recognized the cologne that she knew Mrs. Zabini made him wear--and there was absolutely no way that it was Crabbe or Goyle, so the only other Slytherin it left was...Nott? But that didn’t make sense either--she’d never spoken to him before in her life, even less than Malfoy. So perhaps it would be better if she didn’t think on it.

The next day of potion brewing came on a stormy Wednesday. Malfoy and Y/N worked silently together to brew a Draught of Dreamless Sleep. She was surprised to see how practiced his movements were--he didn’t even have to reference the book to recite the exact measurements and directions.

“Do you have bad dreams or something?” she asked, mostly as a joke. He didn’t seem to pick up on the light-heartedness and stiffened up.

“No?”

“Gee, you’re talkative today,” Y/N said, trying to ignore how her hand brushed his by accident when she added the scoop of anjelica. 

“Excuse me for not entertaining you,” he drawled. “I wasn’t expecting to have such a needy potions partner today.”

“I am not needy!” she gasped, smacking his arm. “I’ve sat in silence for a full hour!”

He rolled his eyes (he was always rolling his eyes) and gave the potion one more final stir before setting the lid on the cauldron. “Think you can do that again? It needs to simmer for that long.”

“Just because you’re so sweet to me,” crooned Y/N before pulling out a heavy book from her satchel. Her Charms exam was tomorrow, and, naturally, she had decided to save all of her revising work until the night before. The textbook stared back at her as she jotted a few notes onto a previously blank sheet of parchment. The quill in her hands was light and glided across the paper like the tears of Merlin, something that she had forgotten quills could do. All of her familiar basic quills were okay, but they were prone to skidding and breaking. This nib hadn’t worn down in the slightest, still at a smooth and defined peak.

Y/N couldn’t believe that, out of all people, the person to give her such a thoughtful gift was Draco Malfoy. She tried to sneak a glance at him then, moving her curtain of hair away from her face. It took all she had in her to not be startled at the fact that he was already looking back, a slightly concerned expression etched into his face.

“Is something wrong?” 

He snapped out of it the moment the words left her lips, his face hardening. “No.”

“Forget I ever asked,” she responded, turning away from him for good and focusing on her textbook. No, there was no way he could be what she smelled in her Amortentia. She liked to think that her subconscious wasn’t secretly a masochist.

~

Friday evening swung around again, much to Y/N’s dismay. She’d had a talk with Hermione later on in the week, confirming that no, she did not smell Malfoy in her Amortentia, and that yes, she was still abiding by the plan that Hermione had so carefully laid out for her. It did bother her a bit that she could be lying to her on both fronts--but at the end of the day, she was going to get the answers that Harry wanted, no matter what. 

She just had to get through the scary ass castle first. She’d forgotten how spooky Hogwarts was after her previous sprint to the door, and this time she was positively trembling by the time she turned another dark corner on her way to McGonagall’s office. Yet another cursed item had been found in the girl’s lavatory on the 3rd floor, right by some of the classes that she had taken earlier in the week. The fact that whoever was out there was capable of dark magic and actively wanted to hurt people terrified her, all that Gryffindor bravery be damned. 

So when she heard footsteps suddenly right beside her, it was no wonder that she jumped feet in the air.

“Fuck!” she sputtered, turning to see a very familiar blonde in Slytherin robes. He was frozen in place, curiously looking her up and down.

“Am I interrupting something?”

“Malfoy,” Y/N said, resisting the urge to melt into a puddle of relief at the sight. This wasn’t right--wasn’t he a suspected Death Eater? “You scared me.”

He scoffed, digging his hands into his pockets. “You’re supposed to be the brave ones, right?”

“Huh?”

Malfoy motioned to her Gryffindor jumper. 

“Oh.” Heat rushed to her cheeks as she realized what he meant. “I dunno. I just get jumpy around the castle at night.”

“No shit.” They’d begun to walk now, side by side. Y/N couldn’t remember ever walking with him before--she’d always been late. “Do you think I forgot the way you screamed when you saw me at the tower?”

“Shut up,” she grumbled, reaching over and giving him a healthy shove. 

They walked in silence together. Malfoy moved noticeably slower than he normally did so he wouldn’t leave Y/N’s shorter legs in tow. McGonagall seemed pleasantly surprised to see Malfoy hold the door open for her.

“I’m glad to see you two getting along,” she said, giving Y/N a hesitant nod before grabbing the stack of papers on her desk. “I’ll be back momentarily.”

After she exited the room with a swish of her deep maroon robes, Malfoy turned to her. “Are you scared of the dark or something?”

She turned, ready to send a biting retort his way, before she noticed how gray his pallor looked...and how big the circles under his eyes were. “You look like shit, Malfoy. Is everything okay?”

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t change the subject.”

“Oh. Um…” Y/N pause before deciding that the little tidbit of information she was about to reveal wasn’t that important anyways. “I’m just on edge at night at Hogwarts is all. Especially with all that weird shit going on with all the cursed objects. So I kind of hate walking to and from detention.”

Malfoy let out something that sounded like a strained laugh.

“You didn’t answer my question. Is everything okay?”

“None of your business,” he snipped. “I just had a bad night.”

“Do you have trouble sleeping?” she asked, unable to keep herself from prying.

“Something like that.”

“Have you tried lavender?”

“I’m sorry?” He frowned.

“Lavender. Like the essential oil. It’s nothing magical,” she explained. “I just like to spray it in my bed sometimes before I sleep. Or I’ll use a few drops in a diffuser. I have trouble sleeping too, all the time, actually.” She shut her mouth before she had any chance to ramble further.

“It sounds a bit too floral for my taste.”

“Here.” Y/N dug around in her satchel, searching for the tiny spray bottle she kept with her at all times. “Borrow this and spritz your pillow with it before you sleep, and then tell me it’s too floral. I promise it helps.”

He glared at her. She extended her hand with the white bottle that was covered in purple decor, raising her eyebrows expectantly. “I won’t tell anyone that you have it if that’s what you’re worried about or whatever.”

“Fine,” he snapped, snatching it from her hand and dragging his fingers over her palm for just a second. “Don’t expect me to actually try it, though.”

“Just give it a sniff.” 

He huffed, but to her surprise, he actually uncapped the top and held the spray hole up to his nose, inhaling in once.

The effect was immediate. Malfoy’s face completely drained of color, becoming even grayer than he’d been when she first saw him under the light. The briefest expression of surprise fleeted over his face before he wiped it off, replacing it with something unreadable and tossing it back at her. “I’m not using this.”

“Why not?”

“Not quite my taste,” he spat.

Y/N was shocked by the sudden outburst, watching as he continued to glower at his desk. “I don’t understand. It really does help you sleep. I know it seems stupid, but I...really think you should try it. Just once, if anything.”

“Why does it matter so much to you?”

“Because I--” Y/N stopped herself before she let her mouth run without check. “I know what it’s like is all. I feel like shit if I don’t sleep. Plus, I have to spend time with you every Friday. I imagine that you’ll be slightly more tolerable if you sleep more.”

“Hm.” He sent her a particularly venomous glare. “Thanks for your concern. Consider me uninterested, though.”

“You break my heart,” she teased, pulling back her hand and placing the bottle on the corner of her desk. An idea struck her.

“And just what are you smiling about?” Draco said. His lips were turned into a sour frown. 

“Nothing, nothing,” she responded, her voice adopting a sing-song quality. All she had to do now was wait. 

He exhaled, a deep and exasperated sound. Then he turned back to whatever was in front of him.

McGonagall entered the room a few minutes later, nodding cordially at the comfortable silence the two students were in. What she didn’t know was that Y/N was waiting, just waiting for Malfoy to dig through his satchel and stop paying attention to his quill.

She got her opportunity a few minutes later, when McGonagall called him up to look over his latest Transfiguration homework.

“Mr. Malfoy, I’m happy to see that you’re taking more initiative in getting your assignments done...I have to say that you had me a bit concerned…”

While her professor kept Malfoy occupied, Y/N darted over and grabbed his quill. 

Ha.

Malfoy frowned down at his desk when he returned, giving Y/N a suspicious look.

“What is it, Malfoy?” she said, hoping her voice conveyed nothing that might hint that she took something of his.

“Nothing.”

“Hm.”

The rest of detention passed without any more discussion. Y/N was eager to run up to her dorm and set up her plan to be carried out the next morning, but she calmed her bouncing leg and forced herself to keep a straight face when McGonagall dismissed them.

“Got somewhere to be, Y/L/N?” Malfoy’s voice called after her as she sped down the hall towards the Gryffindor tower. 

“What’s it to you?” she fired back.

He didn’t respond. Instead, he picked up his pace until he was walking next to her.

“Aren’t the Slytherin dorms the other direction?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Are they?” 

She allowed herself to be amused by the way words flowed out of his mouth when he was slightly out of breath. “Why are you walking with me?”

“You said it yourself.” He kept his eyes cast on the cobblestones below them. “You don’t like walking alone at night.”

“Uh...oh.” Against her will, her feet froze and she was glued to the ground. “You’re joking, right?”

If the lighting wasn’t so dim, Y/N would have good reason to believe he was blushing with how intently he was studying his fingernails. “By all means, I can be.”

“No! No, I didn’t mean it like that,” she said, the words tumbling out of her mouth. “Er...I’d like you to. If you want to, that is.”

He shrugged, an elfish expression spreading across his face as he took in how nervous she was. “Well, come to think of it, you didn’t ask me to. I suppose I better get back to the Slytherin dorms anyways. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near the Gryffindor Tower right now.”

“Why?” she squeaked.

“Oh, you know, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most of the cursed things showed up on your side of the castle, yeah?”

She gulped.

“I gotta get going. Don’t want to stand around here too long. This place gives me the creeps.” With that, he turned and began walking away.

“Malfoy?” She hated how timid her voice sounded. “Consider this me asking you to walk with me.”

He slowly faced her, a sly grin plastered all over his face. “Oh? Did I hear that correctly? Do you want me to?”

“I’m only going to say this once,” she said, putting her hands on her hips and trying her best to look intimidating. “Walk with me. Please.”

“I guess I’ll take it.” Malfoy glided down the hallway to her in just a couple steps, sending her yet another smug look.

“You made up that whole ordeal about Gryffindor Tower being targeted, didn’t you?” asked Y/N as they rounded the corner to reach the staircase leading up to the common room.

“You bought it, didn’t you?” 

“Who says I didn’t just want you to walk with me?” pushed Y/N. This was as close to flirting as it would ever get for her--but it looked like, somehow, things were falling into place. The heat in her cheeks must’ve been from the excitement of making progress. 

Malfoy’s toe caught on the first stair and, if it weren’t for Y/N’s steady grip on his arm, would’ve made him go sprawling across the stone steps. 

“Merlin, Malfoy,” she said, immediately dropping her grip from his shoulder. “What’s gotten into you?”

He responded with an unceremonial snort and a withering glare. The rest of the walk was done in silence, and Y/N noted how careful his footwork became around the Gryffindor steps.

“This is me,” she finally said once they reached the tapestry for the Gryffindor dorms. He seemed surprised, and only then did it strike her that he’d probably never seen the entrance himself before. “Thanks for being such a gentleman.”

“I live to serve,” he drawled.

And just like that, he was gone.

~

Her plan was simple. She had located an extra monogrammed pouch in her cabinet, a rich mahogany color with her family crest in a vivid gold, and placed both his quill and the lavender bottle. She would corner him after breakfast or follow him out of the Great Hall and show him then.

However, it was becoming increasingly obvious that Malfoy was not coming to Saturday morning breakfast. Many people didn’t, but Y/N had never known him to miss it. His normal spot was vacant, and it certainly wasn’t a house-made decision as all of his Slytherin friends were present and accounted for. Y/N couldn’t say for sure, but she could see Parkinson turning her head to the entrance every time the doors thudded open before glancing back to Malfoy’s empty seat when it turned out to be someone else.

Where was that loser?

“Excuse me,” she said to the trio as she stood up and brushed off her skirt. “I think I’m going to go get some fresh air. I have a bitch of a headache.”

Hermione and Harry expressed their sympathies while Ron gave her a characteristic mumble through his mouthful of bread, and she was off with the pouch secured in her cloak pocket.

It was a clear November morning, clearly Mother Nature’s attempt to slowly move the world from the crisp autumn to a cold winter. The sky was clear and the sun’s rays warmed her skin at a slanted angle, casting weak shadows across the courtyard.

If I were Malfoy, where would I go to sulk?

The obvious answer was either the Slytherin common room or his own dorm, but that was without a doubt out of question for her. She wasn’t even sure if she possessed the knowledge to guess which corridor the entrance was in, much less work out the password herself. Beyond that, just getting into the common room and waiting would be...She shivered. It would be a terrible idea while she was clearly wearing a cloak in Gryffindor red and gold trim. 

As she continued her aimless wander around the castle, she heard the slightest sound from the girl’s bathroom on the second floor. It wasn’t ever really in use--no one came in there to actually use the loo unless they wanted Myrtle to materialize and tell them her supernatural troubles while they were in the middle of their personal business--but it was often the source of strange happenings. 

Like the cursed objects she thought to herself, her nails digging into her palms. But did she care about that right now? Surely cursed objects seemed somewhat...suspicious. Dark magic was difficult to hide, and to a pureblood eye that grew up around magical objects, cursed things shouldn’t be impossible to spot. 

And, plus, it was Malfoy she was looking for. None of the students had died from the curses so far, and if she was able to break through and learn something, or at the very least gain his trust, the reward to the Order would be more than worth it.

She stepped in, expecting to see an entirely empty bathroom with perhaps a ghost rattling around at the sink. Instead, a different sight awaited her.

Draco Malfoy was clutching the edge of the cracked sink basin in front of him, rocking himself back and forth and shaking. From her vantage point, she could see that he was dressed in his normal garb--a black ensemble--but his hair was unruly and messy, sticking up in the back like he’d hurriedly tugged something over his head.

A strangled gasp grounded her and halted her curious observations. Malfoy began to make these awful sobbing sounds, like he could barely manage to breathe. 

Y/N was frozen in place as she surveyed her options. If she stayed and tried to talk to him, he might react in anger or hurt her. But if she just left him, like this, all alone...She swallowed once before stepping forward.

“Malfoy? Are you okay?” Obviously he’s not, you bint said a voice deep in her brain. She pushed it aside as he swung around, his wand raised and his eyes blazing. “Whoa! I’m not going to...Put your wand down!”

He stared at her, his eyes wide with horror as he continued to shake, so much so that his wand slipped out of his hand and clattered to the floor. Without thinking, Y/N reached into her pocket and flung her wand away, holding her hands up.

“I’m not going to try anything. I promise.”

As she drew closer, she could see the remnants of tears on his wet cheeks and the way that his silver eyes were rimmed with a bloodshot red. 

“You shouldn’t be here,” he hissed, his voice weak and cracking. 

“Neither should you. This is the girl’s bathroom.”

final a/n: ok so lmk if you guys wants me to continue. i really did not edit the last half fjkdsal;f also kinda made this an au where malfoy tried to assassinate dumbledore. with more than one cursed object but dw it’ll all make sense ill clear that up 😭

[regrettablewritings]

Dating Bruce Wayne Would Include (Pt. II)

Because apparently more people love Bat Daddy than they’re willing to admit

Dates – or rather, the process of planning them – are a little weird for the two of you

Despite him being wealthy and having had a reputation as a philanderer, Bruce is still a very devoted businessman with an entire enterprise to run. This may or may not clash with your own schedule, depending on what you do, but it is more likely Bruce’s schedule that needs the most consideration when plotting out a date

Then, of course, there’s your lover’s obvious nighttime job. It’s not even necessarily that he can’t take the night off; it’s just that those nights are few and far in between. Though now that he’s getting older and has a significant other to appreciate in his life, he does attempt to make more of an effort to take at several nights or so per month off.

This may not seem like much, but considering what he does…

Most dates are what you’d expect: trips to the opera, dinners at fancy, high-end restaurants, museums, walks in the nicer parts of town such as the botanical garden

Others, not so much: You may be craving some fast food so you two wind up at a Big Belly Burger or just a coffee date at Jitter’s. You’ve even convinced him to take a couple’s art class with you a couple of times

He’s quite proud of the vase you made and the portrait of you he made. Both are placed tastefully in the living room on the mantel

He’s always sure to keep some percentage of himself on edge, however, as he doesn’t want to let his guard down only for you to get hurt or worse

You understand this, even though you wish he had the luxury of being completely, 100% chill

Despite clearly being one of the world’s most patient s/os (you’d have to be if you’re dating a vigilante), fights are still going to happen. There’s just no way around it.

It’s a common, natural part of relationships so long as they’re done within reason. Even in a relationship where one of you dresses like a demonic bat and beats up baddies until the candy comes out

The subjects, however, can obviously vary

Sometimes it’s over normal, everyday couple stuff like canceled dates, forgotten events, showing up late to important things, the occasional lack of communication, and so on

Other days, it’s over stuff that only couples composed of a normal person and their superhero s/o could experience like way-too-close calls, arriving home looking like Death escorted them back out of pity, becoming too ambitious and losing sight or even themselves, debates over conflicting morals …

One time, you really hurt Bruce on accident

You’d made it so clear that you didn’t approve of his new use of Bat Brands

“It’s just going a little too far, Bruce – it’s inhumane!”

Of course, he didn’t listen and it resulted in an argument when you accused him of being more animal than man and that wasn’t going to help anyone because he was just making things worse

Considering that one of his deepest fears is that this is all for nothing and he was losing himself as a result, he didn’t take it well. He went out patrolling without a word and didn’t arrive until 10 AM – way later than when he usually returns

You tried apologizing to him but he just kept quiet and broody

You suspect Alfred scolded at him for not giving his beloved a chance to redeem themselves because hours later he stopped leaving the room every time you entered it, allowing for you to apologize

You two had a discussion about it and decided to discuss the future of Bat Brands

Bruce, however, can accidentally be more biting and ruthless

He doesn’t mean to be, he’s just so used to coming off as imposing that it accidentally slips through. That doesn’t excuse his actions, though, it only explains them.

He especially got like this when he tried to get that you need to be more careful or stop being so trusting of figures like Superman

One such example was when you tried playing devil’s advocate for the last Kryptonian, a move you should’ve known was risky as hell considering how much destruction he’d caused, including to Bruce’s associates. But your sense of compassion couldn’t allow you to immediately determine that he was necessarily evil

This prompted Bruce, in growing anger, to tell you to wise up before you got yourself killed. Your “lovey dovey” nature didn’t apply to the real world and if there was a chance that Superman would kill anyone, he’d take it and you needed to pick which side you were on

You weren’t sure which suggestion you were most hurt about (that you weren’t dedicated to him, that you were being stupid), but cringed at the way he said “lovey dovey.” You couldn’t help but tear up because it felt like you were being kicked for something Bruce had previously praised about you

You gave the silent treatment for a week after that and spent the next few nights at your old apartment. If your “lovey dovey” nature was inapplicable, why waste your time?

Bruce obviously felt awful about it, but also felt a little too prideful to apologize. But then Alfred threatened to break his neck and forced the two of you to sit down and talk it out

Bruce had to apologize to you for a month both in words, items, and actions

He then owes you money after you both meet Supes and learn that he’s not a bad guy

You guys also get into arguments over how overprotective he can be and how it sometimes clouds his judgement, but those are usually settled a lot easier

You honestly didn’t move in to his place too quickly. A lot of people found it odd, considering how common it was for couples to move in together nowadays. Besides, it wasn’t as if you’d ever want for anything by moving in with the richest man in the city

But you had your reasons

Mainly that you enjoyed where your own apartment was: Near enough to civilization, which had coffee shops and bookstores and markets

Seriously, Bruce lives so out of city limits that spending the night at his place can require careful planning (and a constant refusal to watch scary movies)

It probably doesn’t even occur to you that you’ve 96% moved into his place until you’ve just taken a shower and casually gone through the dresser to find your favorite blouse. When you find it, it hits you that you’ve pretty much made a home away from home with him

But you keep your place because sometimes, Bruce just wants to get away from his place and just envelope himself in yours

Alfred makes you a few defense devices, both per Bruce’s request and per your own. The difference is that Bruce’s tend to be more like juiced up brass knuckles and advanced versions of stun guns, things meant to hold attackers at bay so you can escape them and get to safety. Your requests, however, have every intent on keeping them immobilized and begin to resemble Bruce’s own devices with a “(Y/N) charm” to them

Bruce tells Alfred to stop taking your requests because he doesn’t want you getting more involved than you already are so long as he can help it

Alfred doesn’t listen anyway

Speaking of Alfred, he adores you and sees you as the daughter he’d never had. Or, in this case, the daughter-in-law he’s snarked at Bruce to give him for literal decades

You two enjoy making snarky remarks both about and at Bruce, based on his actions and thoughts

Alfred also makes the two of you snacks while you’re waiting up for Bruce to return. He may not stay up as late as you do, being so used to Bruce’s nighttime antics. But if you fall asleep on the couch, Alfred will put a blanket over you

You get to touch the Bat Boobs™

Bruce is less than amused when he comes back up from working out and you begin to grope his pecs.

He stares blankly ahead, unsure of what to feel, when you jokingly complain about his boobs being bigger than yours

If you can’t sleep, there are multiple methods at your disposal

If the ASMR videos or white noise machines don’t work, and you don’t want to wake anyone up by sneaking into the kitchen, you may wind up pacing –

Which, if he was asleep already, may wake Bruce up because he no longer feels you next to/on top of him

Since you couldn’t fall asleep by just being held in the first place, Bruce decides on another method: Working out

After you threaten to destroy him for even joking about that nightmare routine, he settles on another method: Taking a drive

He sticks to driving around areas he knows are notably safer but still quiet

Having a family is a rather…touchy subject.

He’s still obviously very effected by the death of his parents, and this has led to an extremely ambitious level of protectiveness. He likes to joke that you’re enough of a handful

And considering what happened to his Robin …

This isn’t going to stop Alfred from lightly pushing the subject, however, which eventually causes you to occasionally bring it up

This is a subject for another time, Bruce insists

Though he’d be lying if he claimed that he never once thought about what a combination of you and himself would look like

He imagines they’d have his eyes, your hair, his athleticism and hunger for knowledge and your determination, interpersonal skills, and overall glowing personality – basically, the perfect Wayne who would never want for anything because they’ll get far in life with just their personality alone

Bruce prays you never ask him what he thinks your child would be like because he’d be too tempted to let this spill

For all the curly-haired sisters out there: You know Bruce has your back with all those costly hair products.

He’s less than impressed with the prices, not because he has to spend it all, but because it shouldn’t cost $16 for a tiny container of Kinky Curly or $300 for a keratin treatment that’ll help straighten your hair, should you desire so

Bruce also don’t play that Pink Tax shit

“They’re just razors. They don’t even cut like mine do – and I have facial hair–… I’m just buying you my brand, the only difference is that mine actually works.”

“… Why do sanitary products cost this much?” “Because patriarchy.” “It’s not a luxury, though. So what the hell?”

Still needs your instructions when he’s on his own getting pads for you – even if he’s shopping for an economy order online. But my god, does he try

Speaking of which, during that time of the month, Bruce is highkey lowkey panicky

Not because you’re bleeding from an intimate area, but because blood is unpredictable and can be hard to get out of silk sheets

Lightly tries to convince you to relocate to the couch, where he’s set up a comfort corner for you: blankets, heating pads, tea, chocolate, salty snacks, tissues, ibuprofen, and movies you enjoy as well as ones that make you tired so you can rest with background noise

Of course, you have to lay on a towel. Better safe than sorry

Nicking one of Bruce’s older capes and trying to mimic his dark and brooding actions and demeanor

He thinks it’s cute that you try to perch on the arms of the sofa or the edge of the bed

He thinks it’s less cute when you scare the crap out of him when he walks into the bathroom to find your perched on the bathroom counter just waiting for him

He’s torn between finding it cute and un-cute when you try to make your voice gravely and talk like him

“I am the night, the terror that stalks you down the alleyways your morality dwells in.” “Babe, I don’t talk like that.” “Yes, I do.” “When did I become a (insert-your-height) cape-swiper who still trips on it when they run down the halls with it?” “… Harsh.”

He thinks it’s just plain adorable when you attempt to dive-bomb him with the cape on so he can catch you. He’d never admit it, though, because he plays it off as an annoyance

He doesn’t have to admit it, though; you can tell by the look in his eyes

Obligatory “easy nights”

These aren’t necessarily dates unless you count spending the nights where he isn’t patrolling cuddled up and just enjoying each other’s company dates

You don’t even really play music of watch a movie or anything most of the time – it’s literally just you two holding each other and listening to one another’s heartbeats

Because the sad thing is, you don’t always know when it’s going to be the last time either of you hears the other’s

Of course, nobody wants to spend such an intimate and meaningful moment being broody so when you’re not basking in silence, you’re talking

There’s often times no rhyme or reason to your conversations, they could literally be about anything: How your days were, Wayne stocks, that one bitchy coworker of yours whom Bruce offers to spook (if you say no, he says he could just show up at your workplace in his civilian clothes and make them nervous by his mere, handsome presence).

Sometimes they’re jokes, other times they’re memories. And other times, they’re just philosophical views on the concept of life and free will, or what love is

And, as the night wears on and you get more and more tired, just plain delirious subjects like how Japan has mascots for nearly everything and how you think that, as Gotham’s prince, Bruce should apply the same to the city

“Wayne Tower can be a goat mountain-climber – because you’re always climbing to new heights!” “I’m surprised you didn’t say a bat. And soaring to new heights.” “ … Awww, blubber nuggets.” “ ‘Blubber nuggets’?” “Don’t patronize me, Brucifer.”

It’s usually at this point that Bruce insists it’s time to officially turn in for the night. You, however, object to this because you want to spend more time talking and cuddling – you already don’t get as much of this as you’d like

Ten minutes later (or even mid-sentence), you’re out like a light. Being in Bruce’s arms makes you feel so safe and warm and loved that you can’t help but melt into them and fall into the most assuring sign of trust there is: sleep

Chances are, Bruce won’t get up immediately because he doesn’t want to disturb you just yet. And because he likes to take these opportunities to just look at you

He shouldn’t have someone like you, he knows that. He’s done too many things that should’ve forbade him from ever landing any kind of long-term romance, especially with someone like you

But here you are, physically there and not just as a figment of his imagination, so far in that you’d even fall asleep in his embrace

Bruce has never been a truly religious man. But it’s moments like this that he can’t help but thank whichever deity is out there for giving him this one last chance at happiness 

The next morning, like clockwork, Alfred comes down to make breakfast and finds Master Bruce asleep on the couch, cradling, as if you were a precious Faberge egg. He decides against making a ruckus and retreats back to his room for a cup of coffee

Bruce doesn’t get many opportunities to feel this safe and vulnerable; he needs this more than he’ll ever admit to anyone

[haphazardlyparked]

Omgosh where IS the fantasy?!?!?!?!?

this one means i need to “write more Combatants”, which is my science fiction fantasy thing. except that there’s no fantasy yet. and, erm. we still haven’t got there… but soon i promise.

For Sarko, the first twenty minutes or so go unbearably slowly.

He’s still in Station S, at the Ops console, struggling to claw data on the wuzari mothership from them, though the most he can assemble right now is are basic floor plans and maps. Judging from the cut of lines on the simple layered diagram, their guess at the cloaked ship’s shape is right: some kind of circular thing made of interconnected pieces that might be able to detach into individual ships. If Sarko had the time to care, he’d think the design is clever, versatile like their invasive, sticky-fingered codes. Beautiful, if only it didn’t leave him feeling dirtied and nauseous.

He’s also got Eyes following K-squad as they slink through pristine halls made of sleek lights and hard angles, and his voice is in their ears as he directs them as best he can given the patchy intel.

“All clear,” they take turns saying as they round blind corners and pass through asymmetrical intersections, where corridors don’t quite line up with each other despite the smooth floor plans Sarko is working off of.

“We appear to be ascending,” Everett says.

“Descending,” Meris disagrees with consternation.

“I—“ Cal begins, but Jones stops them all.

“Let’s agree to disagree. Sarko?”

Sarko doesn’t know what the hell they’re talking about, but he spins together an explanation that involves twisting ship limbs and different artificial gravity mechanisms. “The most important thing is,” he assures them without feeling assured, “is that you’re all headed for Commander K’s subcutaneous tracker, still.”

The subcutaneous trackers, injected into the shoulder, are generally less precise and reliable than tracking Station S’s particle residue — but K’s been off-ship for far more than five hours now. The residue from her shift has all faded, and now Sarko can only hope and pray that the standard tracking chip hasn’t been found and removed, or worse. (What could be worse doesn’t bear thinking about, but then, the wuzari have always managed to be creative in the most devastating of ways.)

K-squad’s jaunt through the wuzari ship is a glacial crawl; in twenty minutes, they’re only about halfway to K’s location by Sarko’s rough estimate. (He’s still got secondary Eyes on her, flickering in the background, but he can’t bring himself to focus on the image. He doesn’t want to see her sluggishly bleeding wounds or pale face, doesn’t want to play that awful game of is she-isn’t she breathing, not when he’s got orders to follow and an unsanctioned mission to monitor.)

But then, at twenty-one minutes, all Eyes on K go dark. Sarko knows they should have lasted another four hours at least, but he’s only given a couple of minutes to obsess over the tech failure. At twenty-three minutes, as K-squad is veers left to pass through another asymmetrical intersection of halls, Elsbeth hails Sarko.

“Captain,” she says, voice tight.

Sarko’s stomach sinks. “There’s a problem with Pyrrha,” he guesses, because there’s nothing else in this moment that could worry Elsbeth more, not even the Eyes on K failing.

“Pyrrha is fine,” Elsbeth hedges, “For now. Because they’re hacking into the Pandora Gate directly instead. It’s — they’ve got the power to breech the firewalls. I give it another twenty minutes, if they’re not headed off.”

Her meaning is clear. Sarko needs to be at the Core Console now — Elsbeth needs to continue reviewing the revised Pyrrha Protocol and Sarko needs to protect the integrity of the Pandora Gate’s coding. K-squad needs to get to K before she dies, but nobody’s as good at running Ops as Elsbeth and Sarko, and Micah is right. Sarko is selfish and cruel and he’s going to get everyone killed.

At least now, he can reasonably blame the wuzari, too.

“Jones,” Sarko grits his teeth. “I’m handing off to Lawson.” He’s going to get everyone killed, and there’s no atoning for that, so the best he can do is make sure the slaughter is contained to Elpis-P1. Pyrrha must work. 

“—fucking hell,” Meris complains.

Lawson’s already taking over the comms and Eyes. “Sorry you’re stuck with me,” she says breezily. “If any of you die on me, I will kill you.”

Sarko leaves them and takes off for the lift at a run, then, before he’s fully stepped into the Core Console room, he’s already barking out orders. “Wes, get down to Ops and provide additional support. Collins, Si’ek start running analysis on Pandora Gate’s core coding. Patch up any potential weaknesses you can. Elsbeth, how’s the code looking?”

“So far so good, sir,” Elsbeth says. It sounds almost like a prayer.

“We’ll see,” Sarko says grimly. He sits down before his usual workstation and sinks himself into the digital world that makes up his battlefield, his war.

He doesn’t think about how he’s what might happen if he loses, if the wuzari break open Pandora’s secrets and steal into the central systems and snatch hope from the box. They call it the wuzari Conflict back central, like they don’t understand there’s a guerrilla war playing out all along the Pilgrimage. And at the holy site at the end of the long Pilgrimage — the original system from whence they all came — it’s trench warfare. He loses, and the wuzari will take the Pilgrimage systems, one by one, until they reach central and swallow up the whole hard-won empire.

But Sarko doesn’t think of that. Sarko’s head is filled with twisting strategies and code he weaves in an attempt to cut out the wuzari hackers, to pry free their greedy fingers. He’s so deep in the systems that it takes him a moment to recognize when he’s gained ground, shored up defenses enough that he can take a step back. He pulls his hands back to his side, away from the keyboards of his work station. He blinks away the afterimage of interlocking blocks of code, and tries to remember what it feels like to be confined to his human body. It’s strangely more difficult than it should be.

“Elsbeth.”

“About eleven minutes til I’m done.” Twenty-three minutes before he was called up. A little under twenty-six minutes he’s been under. And after eleven minutes, they still need another fifty-eight for the charges to properly rig themselves according to the code. Two more to execute the boom. 

In total, seventy-one minutes they need if they’re going to blow everything to hell.

“What I’ve done now will buy about thirty minutes,” Sarko confesses.

“Shit,” Elsbeth says. “What else can you do?”

Sarko grinds his teeth — he’s a fighter, this is his specialty, and he doesn’t know what to do. This is where Sarko is supposed to make a difference, where Sarko can make up for arming K with a W-knife but then not following her into battle.

In fact, Sarko realizes suddenly – in fact, he never really ‘goes into battle’ at all; he plays defense. He’s forced to battle. 

He smiles grimly. “I’m going to go after their central coding.”

“Ambitious,” Elsbeth says, looking up from her review work. She does not look amused.

“If I attack them,” Sarko argues his case, “They’ll have to defend themselves. It’ll buy us more time.”

“We’ve never got through their second stage of defenses before,” Elsbeth reminds Sarko. She doesn’t need to say there’s no way he’s going to be able to magically do that in the next thirty (twenty nine) minutes before they get past whatever new blockade Sarko devised. 

“If I shift aboard the ship,” says Sarko, “I can hack in easily from the first connected device I come across.”

Elsbeth frowns at Sarko for a long moment. Twenty eight.

“I’ll run Ops,” Elsbeth nearly growls, and then they’re moving towards the lift together.

“Wes,” Sarko says, when they’re back down in  “Sorry. Get back up to Core. You’re going to need to finish reviewing the last of the code. Lawson, find me a half battle kit.”

“Sir?” Lawson asks, like she’s unsure of what she’s hearing.

Elsbeth gently shoulders Lawson out of the way. “A half battle kit,” she repeats as she taps into K-squad’s comms—under Lawson and Wes’s watchful eyes, they’ve moved more slowly; they’re close to K, but haven’t reached her yet. “Captain Sarko needs to board that ship. We’d prefer if he were armed.”

next time i swear: there WILL BE FANTASY 

(make help me write more here)

[internetbasic9]

Nature U.N. General Assembly: Trump Accuses China of Election Meddling

Nature U.N. General Assembly: Trump Accuses China of Election Meddling Nature U.N. General Assembly: Trump Accuses China of Election Meddling https://ift.tt/2Q4w7Nw

Nature

A day after President Trump appeared before the United Nations and made clear his disdain for a global approach to problem solving, he returned on Wednesday to wield the gavel at a meeting of the Security Council, the world organization’s most powerful body.

As the council’s current president, a rotating position, Mr. Trump is leading the group’s meeting on nonproliferation.

On Tuesday, in a speech before the United Nations General Assembly, he argued for a rejection of globalism and attacked Iran, OPEC, Venezuela and the International Criminal Court. Some world leaders rebutted his message, with the heads of state of Turkey, Iran and France denouncing the major themes of his speech.

Some in the audience laughed as Mr. Trump said that more had been done so far during his time in office than in “almost any administration in the history of our country.”

Trump accuses China of election meddling

Photo

China’s foreign affairs minister, Wang Yi, right, at the Security Council briefing. Credit Tom Brenner for The New York Times

During his opening remarks at the Security Council on Wednesday morning, Mr. Trump accused China of trying to meddle in this year’s midterm elections.

Continue reading the main story

“Regrettably, we found that China is attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election, coming up in November, against my administration,” Mr. Trump said. “They do not want me, or us, to win, because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade. And we are winning on trade, we are winning at every level.”

Mr. Trump provided no evidence to back up this assertion, though it appears he was referring to China’s retaliatory tariffs in the escalating trade war.

Much of his speech was spent criticizing Iran, a theme that also dominated his address to the General Assembly a day earlier.

“The regime is the world’s leading sponsor of terror and fuels conflict across the region and beyond,” Mr. Trump said, before calling the Iran nuclear deal a “horrible, one-sided” agreement.

Before the 2015 nuclear accord, he said of Iran, “They were in big, big trouble.”

“They needed cash; we gave it to them,” Mr. Trump said, referring to the lifting of sanctions as a result of the deal.

He said he planned to introduce new economic sanctions on Iran later this year, adding that they would be “tougher than ever before.”

Yet Mr. Trump also had positive words for Iran, thanking that country and Russia for delaying a planned offensive on Syria’s Idlib Province.

President Emmanuel Macron of France, who spoke to the Security Council directly after Mr. Trump, urged unity within the group. He said that relations with Iran must not be limited to a “policy of sanctions,” and that long-term strategies must be put in place.

The 15-member Security Council is the most powerful arm of the United Nations, with the ability to impose sanctions and authorize military intervention.

‘We are with Israel 100 percent,’ Trump says

Photo

Mr. Trump met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at United Nations headquarters on Wednesday. Credit Tom Brenner for The New York Times

Before the Security Council meeting, Mr. Trump met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.

In a news briefing, Mr. Trump said he wanted to reassure Mr. Netanyahu and Israelis that “we are with Israel 100 percent.”

Mr. Trump said he expected to have a framework for a Middle East peace deal in the next “two to three to four months.”

“I like two-state solution,” he said, according to a White House pool report.

“I really believe something will happen,” Mr. Trump said. “It is a dream of mine to be able to get that done prior to the end of my first term.”

On the way into the Security Council meeting, Mr. Trump was asked whether he was willing to meet with President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela. Mr. Trump said he was not opposed to the idea.

“I’m willing to meet with anybody, anytime I can save lives and help people,” he said. “If it’s one life, I am certainly willing to.”

Trump attacks Iran, claims successes at home and draws laughter

Video

Trump Touts Accomplishments in U.N. Speech

President Trump spoke about denuclearization in the Korean Peninsula, the war in Syria and the Iranian government in his address to the United Nations General Assembly.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. Photo by Dave Sanders for The New York Times. Watch in Times Video »

Mr. Trump, in his second address to the General Assembly, boasted on Tuesday of what he called impressive accomplishments in the United States and around the world.

“In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country,” he said, setting off murmurs of laughter by world leaders in the cavernous hall.

“I did not expect that reaction,” he said.

“The United States is stronger, safer and a richer country than it was when I assumed office less than two years ago,” Mr. Trump said. “We are standing up for America and the American people. We are also standing up for the world.”

He said that under his administration the United States had started building a wall along the border with Mexico, defeated the Islamic State and eased the crisis with North Korea through dialogue with the leader of the nuclear-armed state.

“The missiles and rockets are no longer flying in every direction, nuclear testing has stopped,” said the president, who met in Singapore earlier this year with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un. “I would like to thank Chairman Kim for his courage and for the steps he has taken though much work remains to be done.”

Mr. Trump then turned his attention to Iran, denouncing the country’s leaders and calling the government there a “corrupt dictatorship” responsible for “death and destruction.” He said his reimposition of nuclear sanctions had severely weakened the Iranian government.

In a list of complaints about globalism, which he portrayed as a threat to American sovereignty, Mr. Trump rejected the legitimacy of the International Criminal Court, echoing recent statements by top aides like John R. Bolton, his national security adviser.

“As far as America is concerned,” Mr. Trump said, the court, which prosecutes war crimes and crimes against humanity, has “no legitimacy and no authority.”

We “reject the ideology of globalism,” he said.

He also spoke of renegotiating “bad and broken trade deals,” and said that “many nations agree that the trade system is in dire need” of change. He said the United States had “racked up $13 billion in trade deficits” in the last two decades.

“But those days are over,” he said. “We will no longer tolerate such abuse.”

Mr. Trump also assailed the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries — which includes Saudi Arabia, a strong United States ally — over rising oil prices.

OPEC nations are “ripping off the rest of the world,” he said. “I don’t like it. Nobody should like it.”

Iran’s president offers a different portrait of his country than Trump

Photo

President Hassan Rouhani of Iran addressed the General Assembly on Tuesday. Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

President Hassan Rouhani of Iran, who has all but ruled out a meeting with Mr. Trump, spoke hours after the American president and offered a diametrically opposite portrait of his country. Iran, he said, is law abiding, respectful and first in the fight against terrorism.

Mr. Rouhani denounced the Trump administration not only for repudiating the nuclear agreement but also for threatening through the use of sanctions to punish any country that seeks to do business with Iran.

“The economic war that the United States has initiated under the rubric of new sanctions not only targets the Iranian people but entails harmful repercussions for people of other countries,” Mr. Rouhani said.

He also made clear that he thought Mr. Trump’s offer to talk with Iran’s leaders was disingenuous at best.

“It is ironic that the United States government does not even conceal its plan for overthrowing the same government it invites to talks,” Mr. Rouhani said.

France’s president rejects Trump approach

Photo

President Emmanuel Macron of France urged radical action on climate change. Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

President Macron, during his own speech before the General Assembly, defended multilateralism. Without it, Mr. Macron warned, global wars would return. He cautioned that “nationalism always leads to defeat.”

“I do not accept the erosion of multilateralism and don’t accept our history unraveling,” Mr. Macron said. “Our children are watching.”

He also took aim at Mr. Trump’s decision to quit the Paris climate agreement, an ambitious effort to halt climate change.

“The Paris agreement has stayed intact, and that is because we have decided to stay unified in spite of the United States’ decision to withdraw,” Mr. Macron said. “This is power, and this is the way that we overcome the challenges.”

Urging radical action to ensure that the goals of the agreement are met, Mr. Macron told fellow signers to consider steps against countries that rejected it.

“Let’s, for example, stop signing trade agreements with those who don’t comply with the Paris agreement,” he said. “Let’s have our trade agreements take on board our environmental obligations.”

The United States and Syria are the only nations that are not part of the agreement.

Continue reading the main story

Read More | https://ift.tt/2IgqUzi | The New York Times

Nature U.N. General Assembly: Trump Accuses China of Election Meddling, in 2018-09-26 15:43:28

[blogwonderwebsites]

Nature U.N. General Assembly: Trump Accuses China of Election Meddling

Nature U.N. General Assembly: Trump Accuses China of Election Meddling Nature U.N. General Assembly: Trump Accuses China of Election Meddling http://www.nature-business.com/nature-u-n-general-assembly-trump-accuses-china-of-election-meddling/

Nature

A day after President Trump appeared before the United Nations and made clear his disdain for a global approach to problem solving, he returned on Wednesday to wield the gavel at a meeting of the Security Council, the world organization’s most powerful body.

As the council’s current president, a rotating position, Mr. Trump is leading the group’s meeting on nonproliferation.

On Tuesday, in a speech before the United Nations General Assembly, he argued for a rejection of globalism and attacked Iran, OPEC, Venezuela and the International Criminal Court. Some world leaders rebutted his message, with the heads of state of Turkey, Iran and France denouncing the major themes of his speech.

Some in the audience laughed as Mr. Trump said that more had been done so far during his time in office than in “almost any administration in the history of our country.”

Trump accuses China of election meddling

Photo

China’s foreign affairs minister, Wang Yi, right, at the Security Council briefing. Credit Tom Brenner for The New York Times

During his opening remarks at the Security Council on Wednesday morning, Mr. Trump accused China of trying to meddle in this year’s midterm elections.

Continue reading the main story

“Regrettably, we found that China is attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election, coming up in November, against my administration,” Mr. Trump said. “They do not want me, or us, to win, because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade. And we are winning on trade, we are winning at every level.”

Mr. Trump provided no evidence to back up this assertion, though it appears he was referring to China’s retaliatory tariffs in the escalating trade war.

Much of his speech was spent criticizing Iran, a theme that also dominated his address to the General Assembly a day earlier.

“The regime is the world’s leading sponsor of terror and fuels conflict across the region and beyond,” Mr. Trump said, before calling the Iran nuclear deal a “horrible, one-sided” agreement.

Before the 2015 nuclear accord, he said of Iran, “They were in big, big trouble.”

“They needed cash; we gave it to them,” Mr. Trump said, referring to the lifting of sanctions as a result of the deal.

He said he planned to introduce new economic sanctions on Iran later this year, adding that they would be “tougher than ever before.”

Yet Mr. Trump also had positive words for Iran, thanking that country and Russia for delaying a planned offensive on Syria’s Idlib Province.

President Emmanuel Macron of France, who spoke to the Security Council directly after Mr. Trump, urged unity within the group. He said that relations with Iran must not be limited to a “policy of sanctions,” and that long-term strategies must be put in place.

The 15-member Security Council is the most powerful arm of the United Nations, with the ability to impose sanctions and authorize military intervention.

‘We are with Israel 100 percent,’ Trump says

Photo

Mr. Trump met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at United Nations headquarters on Wednesday. Credit Tom Brenner for The New York Times

Before the Security Council meeting, Mr. Trump met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.

In a news briefing, Mr. Trump said he wanted to reassure Mr. Netanyahu and Israelis that “we are with Israel 100 percent.”

Mr. Trump said he expected to have a framework for a Middle East peace deal in the next “two to three to four months.”

“I like two-state solution,” he said, according to a White House pool report.

“I really believe something will happen,” Mr. Trump said. “It is a dream of mine to be able to get that done prior to the end of my first term.”

On the way into the Security Council meeting, Mr. Trump was asked whether he was willing to meet with President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela. Mr. Trump said he was not opposed to the idea.

“I’m willing to meet with anybody, anytime I can save lives and help people,” he said. “If it’s one life, I am certainly willing to.”

Trump attacks Iran, claims successes at home and draws laughter

Video

Trump Touts Accomplishments in U.N. Speech

President Trump spoke about denuclearization in the Korean Peninsula, the war in Syria and the Iranian government in his address to the United Nations General Assembly.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. Photo by Dave Sanders for The New York Times. Watch in Times Video »

Mr. Trump, in his second address to the General Assembly, boasted on Tuesday of what he called impressive accomplishments in the United States and around the world.

“In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country,” he said, setting off murmurs of laughter by world leaders in the cavernous hall.

“I did not expect that reaction,” he said.

“The United States is stronger, safer and a richer country than it was when I assumed office less than two years ago,” Mr. Trump said. “We are standing up for America and the American people. We are also standing up for the world.”

He said that under his administration the United States had started building a wall along the border with Mexico, defeated the Islamic State and eased the crisis with North Korea through dialogue with the leader of the nuclear-armed state.

“The missiles and rockets are no longer flying in every direction, nuclear testing has stopped,” said the president, who met in Singapore earlier this year with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un. “I would like to thank Chairman Kim for his courage and for the steps he has taken though much work remains to be done.”

Mr. Trump then turned his attention to Iran, denouncing the country’s leaders and calling the government there a “corrupt dictatorship” responsible for “death and destruction.” He said his reimposition of nuclear sanctions had severely weakened the Iranian government.

In a list of complaints about globalism, which he portrayed as a threat to American sovereignty, Mr. Trump rejected the legitimacy of the International Criminal Court, echoing recent statements by top aides like John R. Bolton, his national security adviser.

“As far as America is concerned,” Mr. Trump said, the court, which prosecutes war crimes and crimes against humanity, has “no legitimacy and no authority.”

We “reject the ideology of globalism,” he said.

He also spoke of renegotiating “bad and broken trade deals,” and said that “many nations agree that the trade system is in dire need” of change. He said the United States had “racked up $13 billion in trade deficits” in the last two decades.

“But those days are over,” he said. “We will no longer tolerate such abuse.”

Mr. Trump also assailed the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries — which includes Saudi Arabia, a strong United States ally — over rising oil prices.

OPEC nations are “ripping off the rest of the world,” he said. “I don’t like it. Nobody should like it.”

Iran’s president offers a different portrait of his country than Trump

Photo

President Hassan Rouhani of Iran addressed the General Assembly on Tuesday. Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

President Hassan Rouhani of Iran, who has all but ruled out a meeting with Mr. Trump, spoke hours after the American president and offered a diametrically opposite portrait of his country. Iran, he said, is law abiding, respectful and first in the fight against terrorism.

Mr. Rouhani denounced the Trump administration not only for repudiating the nuclear agreement but also for threatening through the use of sanctions to punish any country that seeks to do business with Iran.

“The economic war that the United States has initiated under the rubric of new sanctions not only targets the Iranian people but entails harmful repercussions for people of other countries,” Mr. Rouhani said.

He also made clear that he thought Mr. Trump’s offer to talk with Iran’s leaders was disingenuous at best.

“It is ironic that the United States government does not even conceal its plan for overthrowing the same government it invites to talks,” Mr. Rouhani said.

France’s president rejects Trump approach

Photo

President Emmanuel Macron of France urged radical action on climate change. Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

President Macron, during his own speech before the General Assembly, defended multilateralism. Without it, Mr. Macron warned, global wars would return. He cautioned that “nationalism always leads to defeat.”

“I do not accept the erosion of multilateralism and don’t accept our history unraveling,” Mr. Macron said. “Our children are watching.”

He also took aim at Mr. Trump’s decision to quit the Paris climate agreement, an ambitious effort to halt climate change.

“The Paris agreement has stayed intact, and that is because we have decided to stay unified in spite of the United States’ decision to withdraw,” Mr. Macron said. “This is power, and this is the way that we overcome the challenges.”

Urging radical action to ensure that the goals of the agreement are met, Mr. Macron told fellow signers to consider steps against countries that rejected it.

“Let’s, for example, stop signing trade agreements with those who don’t comply with the Paris agreement,” he said. “Let’s have our trade agreements take on board our environmental obligations.”

The United States and Syria are the only nations that are not part of the agreement.

Continue reading the main story

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/world/americas/united-nations-general-assembly.html | The New York Times

Nature U.N. General Assembly: Trump Accuses China of Election Meddling, in 2018-09-26 15:43:28

[blogparadiseisland]

Nature U.N. General Assembly: Trump Accuses China of Election Meddling

Nature U.N. General Assembly: Trump Accuses China of Election Meddling Nature U.N. General Assembly: Trump Accuses China of Election Meddling http://www.nature-business.com/nature-u-n-general-assembly-trump-accuses-china-of-election-meddling/

Nature

A day after President Trump appeared before the United Nations and made clear his disdain for a global approach to problem solving, he returned on Wednesday to wield the gavel at a meeting of the Security Council, the world organization’s most powerful body.

As the council’s current president, a rotating position, Mr. Trump is leading the group’s meeting on nonproliferation.

On Tuesday, in a speech before the United Nations General Assembly, he argued for a rejection of globalism and attacked Iran, OPEC, Venezuela and the International Criminal Court. Some world leaders rebutted his message, with the heads of state of Turkey, Iran and France denouncing the major themes of his speech.

Some in the audience laughed as Mr. Trump said that more had been done so far during his time in office than in “almost any administration in the history of our country.”

Trump accuses China of election meddling

Photo

China’s foreign affairs minister, Wang Yi, right, at the Security Council briefing. Credit Tom Brenner for The New York Times

During his opening remarks at the Security Council on Wednesday morning, Mr. Trump accused China of trying to meddle in this year’s midterm elections.

Continue reading the main story

“Regrettably, we found that China is attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election, coming up in November, against my administration,” Mr. Trump said. “They do not want me, or us, to win, because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade. And we are winning on trade, we are winning at every level.”

Mr. Trump provided no evidence to back up this assertion, though it appears he was referring to China’s retaliatory tariffs in the escalating trade war.

Much of his speech was spent criticizing Iran, a theme that also dominated his address to the General Assembly a day earlier.

“The regime is the world’s leading sponsor of terror and fuels conflict across the region and beyond,” Mr. Trump said, before calling the Iran nuclear deal a “horrible, one-sided” agreement.

Before the 2015 nuclear accord, he said of Iran, “They were in big, big trouble.”

“They needed cash; we gave it to them,” Mr. Trump said, referring to the lifting of sanctions as a result of the deal.

He said he planned to introduce new economic sanctions on Iran later this year, adding that they would be “tougher than ever before.”

Yet Mr. Trump also had positive words for Iran, thanking that country and Russia for delaying a planned offensive on Syria’s Idlib Province.

President Emmanuel Macron of France, who spoke to the Security Council directly after Mr. Trump, urged unity within the group. He said that relations with Iran must not be limited to a “policy of sanctions,” and that long-term strategies must be put in place.

The 15-member Security Council is the most powerful arm of the United Nations, with the ability to impose sanctions and authorize military intervention.

‘We are with Israel 100 percent,’ Trump says

Photo

Mr. Trump met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at United Nations headquarters on Wednesday. Credit Tom Brenner for The New York Times

Before the Security Council meeting, Mr. Trump met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.

In a news briefing, Mr. Trump said he wanted to reassure Mr. Netanyahu and Israelis that “we are with Israel 100 percent.”

Mr. Trump said he expected to have a framework for a Middle East peace deal in the next “two to three to four months.”

“I like two-state solution,” he said, according to a White House pool report.

“I really believe something will happen,” Mr. Trump said. “It is a dream of mine to be able to get that done prior to the end of my first term.”

On the way into the Security Council meeting, Mr. Trump was asked whether he was willing to meet with President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela. Mr. Trump said he was not opposed to the idea.

“I’m willing to meet with anybody, anytime I can save lives and help people,” he said. “If it’s one life, I am certainly willing to.”

Trump attacks Iran, claims successes at home and draws laughter

Video

Trump Touts Accomplishments in U.N. Speech

President Trump spoke about denuclearization in the Korean Peninsula, the war in Syria and the Iranian government in his address to the United Nations General Assembly.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. Photo by Dave Sanders for The New York Times. Watch in Times Video »

Mr. Trump, in his second address to the General Assembly, boasted on Tuesday of what he called impressive accomplishments in the United States and around the world.

“In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country,” he said, setting off murmurs of laughter by world leaders in the cavernous hall.

“I did not expect that reaction,” he said.

“The United States is stronger, safer and a richer country than it was when I assumed office less than two years ago,” Mr. Trump said. “We are standing up for America and the American people. We are also standing up for the world.”

He said that under his administration the United States had started building a wall along the border with Mexico, defeated the Islamic State and eased the crisis with North Korea through dialogue with the leader of the nuclear-armed state.

“The missiles and rockets are no longer flying in every direction, nuclear testing has stopped,” said the president, who met in Singapore earlier this year with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un. “I would like to thank Chairman Kim for his courage and for the steps he has taken though much work remains to be done.”

Mr. Trump then turned his attention to Iran, denouncing the country’s leaders and calling the government there a “corrupt dictatorship” responsible for “death and destruction.” He said his reimposition of nuclear sanctions had severely weakened the Iranian government.

In a list of complaints about globalism, which he portrayed as a threat to American sovereignty, Mr. Trump rejected the legitimacy of the International Criminal Court, echoing recent statements by top aides like John R. Bolton, his national security adviser.

“As far as America is concerned,” Mr. Trump said, the court, which prosecutes war crimes and crimes against humanity, has “no legitimacy and no authority.”

We “reject the ideology of globalism,” he said.

He also spoke of renegotiating “bad and broken trade deals,” and said that “many nations agree that the trade system is in dire need” of change. He said the United States had “racked up $13 billion in trade deficits” in the last two decades.

“But those days are over,” he said. “We will no longer tolerate such abuse.”

Mr. Trump also assailed the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries — which includes Saudi Arabia, a strong United States ally — over rising oil prices.

OPEC nations are “ripping off the rest of the world,” he said. “I don’t like it. Nobody should like it.”

Iran’s president offers a different portrait of his country than Trump

Photo

President Hassan Rouhani of Iran addressed the General Assembly on Tuesday. Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

President Hassan Rouhani of Iran, who has all but ruled out a meeting with Mr. Trump, spoke hours after the American president and offered a diametrically opposite portrait of his country. Iran, he said, is law abiding, respectful and first in the fight against terrorism.

Mr. Rouhani denounced the Trump administration not only for repudiating the nuclear agreement but also for threatening through the use of sanctions to punish any country that seeks to do business with Iran.

“The economic war that the United States has initiated under the rubric of new sanctions not only targets the Iranian people but entails harmful repercussions for people of other countries,” Mr. Rouhani said.

He also made clear that he thought Mr. Trump’s offer to talk with Iran’s leaders was disingenuous at best.

“It is ironic that the United States government does not even conceal its plan for overthrowing the same government it invites to talks,” Mr. Rouhani said.

France’s president rejects Trump approach

Photo

President Emmanuel Macron of France urged radical action on climate change. Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

President Macron, during his own speech before the General Assembly, defended multilateralism. Without it, Mr. Macron warned, global wars would return. He cautioned that “nationalism always leads to defeat.”

“I do not accept the erosion of multilateralism and don’t accept our history unraveling,” Mr. Macron said. “Our children are watching.”

He also took aim at Mr. Trump’s decision to quit the Paris climate agreement, an ambitious effort to halt climate change.

“The Paris agreement has stayed intact, and that is because we have decided to stay unified in spite of the United States’ decision to withdraw,” Mr. Macron said. “This is power, and this is the way that we overcome the challenges.”

Urging radical action to ensure that the goals of the agreement are met, Mr. Macron told fellow signers to consider steps against countries that rejected it.

“Let’s, for example, stop signing trade agreements with those who don’t comply with the Paris agreement,” he said. “Let’s have our trade agreements take on board our environmental obligations.”

The United States and Syria are the only nations that are not part of the agreement.

Continue reading the main story

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/world/americas/united-nations-general-assembly.html | The New York Times

Nature U.N. General Assembly: Trump Accuses China of Election Meddling, in 2018-09-26 15:43:28

[exfrenchdorsl4p0a1]

Democrats Are Walking A Careful Line In Criticism Of Trump’s Syria Strike

WASHINGTON ― After President Donald Trump launched a Tomahawk missile strike on a Syrian airfield, the debate among congressional Democrats was not over the actual merits of bombing Syrian airfields but instead about Trump’s decision process.

The reaction of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the most progressive member of the Senate Democratic caucus, was a case in point.

“It is very questionable whether it is legal” to bomb the Syrian air force without congressional involvement, Sanders told The Huffington Post.

Some of Sanders’ colleagues were less equivocal, including Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who said this “certainly is not a lawful act.” On the other end of the spectrum, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said it “seems like a reasonable exercise of presidential power.” 

But only a handful of Democrats questioned the evidence that Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons on civilians, the efficacy of using force to address that crime or the overall pattern of U.S. involvement in the Middle East.

The relatively measured criticism from top Democrats reflects a complex array of factors that have again put the party out of step with some grassroots members. In many cases, Democratic lawmakers simply agree with the need to punish Assad for using chemical weapons on the town of Khan Sheikhoun, even as they are uneasy about Trump’s leadership, the legality of his actions or the consequences of a strike.

That leaves Democrats in an interesting political position. For months they have taken every opportunity to lambaste Trump as a threat to the very fabric of the American republic. And from Trump’s travel ban to the Obamacare replacement debacle, the strategy has largely paid off. Now, with Trump launching the first direct attacks on the Syrian government, Democrats are more ambivalent.

Larry Korb, a senior fellow at the Democratic-aligned Center for American Progress, said he was “not surprised” that Democrats were sympathetic to the idea of a retaliatory airstrike. Many Democrats subscribe to a “responsibility to protect” doctrine that swift force is justified to prevent major humanitarian catastrophes, according to Korb.

Democrats should be more concerned, Korb said, with the prospect of this leading to more significant U.S. intervention in Syria.

“The real question is: What comes next?” said Korb, who supported the Obama administration’s decision not to heed calls to arm Syrian rebel groups more aggressively or remove Assad by force.

The fact that Democrats may have substantial reasons to embrace the idea of retaliating against Assad does not diminish the divide between many elected leaders and the ardent anti-interventionism of the party’s base.

“My expectations [of Democrats] were very low, and my expectations were met,” said Phyllis Bennis, a foreign policy expert at the left-wing Institute for Policy Studies. “Am I disappointed that we don’t have an antiwar party? Yes, I am.”

Bennis represents a wing of the peace camp that believes military force, whether legal or not, is justified only in very limited circumstances of self-defense. The last U.S. intervention she considers “legitimate” was World War II.

Bennis and other progressive critics argue that there should be a full international investigation of the use of chemical weapons to determine definitively whether Assad is responsible, which they admit is extremely likely.

“Having a full investigation is not some sort of delaying tactic. It is essential to getting real accountability,” said Stephen Miles, director of the progressive Win Without War coalition.

The residue of the decision not to bomb in 2013 created an environment where the next time it happened, a strike was going to be a foregone conclusion. Steven Simon, former National Security Council official

That view got a high-profile boost from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who urged caution in an interview with The Globe and Mail on Thursday. Trudeau called for a United Nations Security Council resolution that will enable the world “to determine first of all who was responsible for these attacks and how we will move forward.”

Even if Assad’s guilt is established, punishing him militarily would not be an effective response, according to Miles of Win Without War. He supports removing the weapons from Syria, negotiating a diplomatic end to the war and trying alleged war criminals.

“The ultimate accountability comes from international tribunals,” Miles said. “It is really gratifying to blow things up, but that doesn’t make it accountability.” 

But Win Without War, Credo, MoveOn.org and Peace Action, which jointly condemned Trump’s strike as a “reckless act of war,” have largely mirrored Democrats’ talking points about the strikes’ legality in their mobilization strategy.

A petition Credo is circulating that quickly picked up over 57,000 signatures calls on Democrats to “rein in Donald Trump’s unauthorized military strikes and hold immediate emergency deliberations on Trump’s illegal escalation of military engagement in Syria.”

Miles praised House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for demanding that Congress reconvene to debate a new authorization for use of military force ― and saved his criticism for Democratic lawmakers, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who voiced unreserved agreement with Trump’s decision.

“It’s not the first time we have seen Democrats in Congress who are way out of touch with where their base is,” he said.

Democrats have often chafed under Republican claims that they are weak on national security. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, critics saw signs of this insecurity in the ease with which Democratic lawmakers lined up behind then-President George W. Bush’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

But veteran Democratic foreign policy thinkers argue that Democrats’ ambivalence about President Trump’s missile strikes against Assad have more to do with former President Barack Obama and his foreign policy legacy than the ghosts of the Bush presidency.

Obama famously warned the Syrian government that use of chemical weapons would cross a “red line,” forcing the United States to consider military action against Assad’s regime.

When the U.S. concluded in August 2013 that Assad had used chemical weapons against civilians in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, Obama announced plans to launch missile strikes against Syrian military targets.

After the British Parliament rejected a bid for the United Kingdom to participate in the strike, Obama decided to seek congressional approval for the move. It soon became clear that the strike faced bipartisan opposition, and the White House pulled the request.

Despite public opposition to the retaliatory strike, Obama endured a lot of criticism, including from members of his own party, for not honoring his “red line” ultimatum, undermining U.S. credibility.

“The residue of the decision not to bomb in 2013 created an environment where the next time it happened a strike was going to be a foregone conclusion. There’d be no alternative,” said Steven Simon, who was senior director of Middle Eastern and North African affairs on Obama’s National Security Council in 2011 and 2012.

That leaves Democrats who want to avoid a replay of 2013 with limited grounds on which to criticize Trump, admitted Simon, now a history professor at Amherst College.

“They have sort of squared the circle by applauding the use of force but registering concerns about lack of congressional consultation,” Simon said.

Then there is the matter of deeper disagreement within the Democratic Party about Obama’s broader policy toward Syria. Obama rejected the suggestions of many advisers, including then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to intervene more forcefully to protect Syrian civilians and speed up Assad’s ouster. Those disagreements were evident in Clinton’s campaign promise to create a no-fly zone in Syria, as well as her calls Thursday for the U.S. to take out all of Assad’s airfields ― a more ambitious step than Trump ended up taking.

Clinton and other proponents of greater intervention in Syria argue that by declining to diminish Assad, the U.S. will never have the leverage needed to stop his atrocities and forge a diplomatic solution.

As a candidate, Trump ran against Clinton’s strategy, repeatedly insisting that Assad was preferable to the Syrian groups trying to overthrow him.

For Democrats hoping Trump would adopt a more Clintonian approach, it is tempting to view his strike on the Syrian airfield as the beginning of a recognition that Assad must face greater pressure, including the threat of force, to end the conflict.

But one such proponent of more robust action, Michael Breen, president of the center-left Truman Center and Truman National Security Project, warned against getting too optimistic. Breen is concerned about Trump’s haste and apparent lack of strategy. 

“A lot of people wanted to see the U.S. get more involved in Syria and wanted to see a response to the regime’s atrocities, but it is way too early to suddenly say Donald Trump is a different president than he was two days ago.”

Ryan Grim and Mike McAuliff contributed reporting.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2oSVXaw

[stormdoors78476]

Democrats Are Walking A Careful Line In Criticism Of Trump’s Syria Strike

WASHINGTON ― After President Donald Trump launched a Tomahawk missile strike on a Syrian airfield, the debate among congressional Democrats was not over the actual merits of bombing Syrian airfields but instead about Trump’s decision process.

The reaction of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the most progressive member of the Senate Democratic caucus, was a case in point.

“It is very questionable whether it is legal” to bomb the Syrian air force without congressional involvement, Sanders told The Huffington Post.

Some of Sanders’ colleagues were less equivocal, including Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who said this “certainly is not a lawful act.” On the other end of the spectrum, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said it “seems like a reasonable exercise of presidential power.” 

But only a handful of Democrats questioned the evidence that Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons on civilians, the efficacy of using force to address that crime or the overall pattern of U.S. involvement in the Middle East.

The relatively measured criticism from top Democrats reflects a complex array of factors that have again put the party out of step with some grassroots members. In many cases, Democratic lawmakers simply agree with the need to punish Assad for using chemical weapons on the town of Khan Sheikhoun, even as they are uneasy about Trump’s leadership, the legality of his actions or the consequences of a strike.

That leaves Democrats in an interesting political position. For months they have taken every opportunity to lambaste Trump as a threat to the very fabric of the American republic. And from Trump’s travel ban to the Obamacare replacement debacle, the strategy has largely paid off. Now, with Trump launching the first direct attacks on the Syrian government, Democrats are more ambivalent.

Larry Korb, a senior fellow at the Democratic-aligned Center for American Progress, said he was “not surprised” that Democrats were sympathetic to the idea of a retaliatory airstrike. Many Democrats subscribe to a “responsibility to protect” doctrine that swift force is justified to prevent major humanitarian catastrophes, according to Korb.

Democrats should be more concerned, Korb said, with the prospect of this leading to more significant U.S. intervention in Syria.

“The real question is: What comes next?” said Korb, who supported the Obama administration’s decision not to heed calls to arm Syrian rebel groups more aggressively or remove Assad by force.

The fact that Democrats may have substantial reasons to embrace the idea of retaliating against Assad does not diminish the divide between many elected leaders and the ardent anti-interventionism of the party’s base.

“My expectations [of Democrats] were very low, and my expectations were met,” said Phyllis Bennis, a foreign policy expert at the left-wing Institute for Policy Studies. “Am I disappointed that we don’t have an antiwar party? Yes, I am.”

Bennis represents a wing of the peace camp that believes military force, whether legal or not, is justified only in very limited circumstances of self-defense. The last U.S. intervention she considers “legitimate” was World War II.

Bennis and other progressive critics argue that there should be a full international investigation of the use of chemical weapons to determine definitively whether Assad is responsible, which they admit is extremely likely.

“Having a full investigation is not some sort of delaying tactic. It is essential to getting real accountability,” said Stephen Miles, director of the progressive Win Without War coalition.

The residue of the decision not to bomb in 2013 created an environment where the next time it happened, a strike was going to be a foregone conclusion. Steven Simon, former National Security Council official

That view got a high-profile boost from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who urged caution in an interview with The Globe and Mail on Thursday. Trudeau called for a United Nations Security Council resolution that will enable the world “to determine first of all who was responsible for these attacks and how we will move forward.”

Even if Assad’s guilt is established, punishing him militarily would not be an effective response, according to Miles of Win Without War. He supports removing the weapons from Syria, negotiating a diplomatic end to the war and trying alleged war criminals.

“The ultimate accountability comes from international tribunals,” Miles said. “It is really gratifying to blow things up, but that doesn’t make it accountability.” 

But Win Without War, Credo, MoveOn.org and Peace Action, which jointly condemned Trump’s strike as a “reckless act of war,” have largely mirrored Democrats’ talking points about the strikes’ legality in their mobilization strategy.

A petition Credo is circulating that quickly picked up over 57,000 signatures calls on Democrats to “rein in Donald Trump’s unauthorized military strikes and hold immediate emergency deliberations on Trump’s illegal escalation of military engagement in Syria.”

Miles praised House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for demanding that Congress reconvene to debate a new authorization for use of military force ― and saved his criticism for Democratic lawmakers, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who voiced unreserved agreement with Trump’s decision.

“It’s not the first time we have seen Democrats in Congress who are way out of touch with where their base is,” he said.

Democrats have often chafed under Republican claims that they are weak on national security. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, critics saw signs of this insecurity in the ease with which Democratic lawmakers lined up behind then-President George W. Bush’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

But veteran Democratic foreign policy thinkers argue that Democrats’ ambivalence about President Trump’s missile strikes against Assad have more to do with former President Barack Obama and his foreign policy legacy than the ghosts of the Bush presidency.

Obama famously warned the Syrian government that use of chemical weapons would cross a “red line,” forcing the United States to consider military action against Assad’s regime.

When the U.S. concluded in August 2013 that Assad had used chemical weapons against civilians in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, Obama announced plans to launch missile strikes against Syrian military targets.

After the British Parliament rejected a bid for the United Kingdom to participate in the strike, Obama decided to seek congressional approval for the move. It soon became clear that the strike faced bipartisan opposition, and the White House pulled the request.

Despite public opposition to the retaliatory strike, Obama endured a lot of criticism, including from members of his own party, for not honoring his “red line” ultimatum, undermining U.S. credibility.

“The residue of the decision not to bomb in 2013 created an environment where the next time it happened a strike was going to be a foregone conclusion. There’d be no alternative,” said Steven Simon, who was senior director of Middle Eastern and North African affairs on Obama’s National Security Council in 2011 and 2012.

That leaves Democrats who want to avoid a replay of 2013 with limited grounds on which to criticize Trump, admitted Simon, now a history professor at Amherst College.

“They have sort of squared the circle by applauding the use of force but registering concerns about lack of congressional consultation,” Simon said.

Then there is the matter of deeper disagreement within the Democratic Party about Obama’s broader policy toward Syria. Obama rejected the suggestions of many advisers, including then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to intervene more forcefully to protect Syrian civilians and speed up Assad’s ouster. Those disagreements were evident in Clinton’s campaign promise to create a no-fly zone in Syria, as well as her calls Thursday for the U.S. to take out all of Assad’s airfields ― a more ambitious step than Trump ended up taking.

Clinton and other proponents of greater intervention in Syria argue that by declining to diminish Assad, the U.S. will never have the leverage needed to stop his atrocities and forge a diplomatic solution.

As a candidate, Trump ran against Clinton’s strategy, repeatedly insisting that Assad was preferable to the Syrian groups trying to overthrow him.

For Democrats hoping Trump would adopt a more Clintonian approach, it is tempting to view his strike on the Syrian airfield as the beginning of a recognition that Assad must face greater pressure, including the threat of force, to end the conflict.

But one such proponent of more robust action, Michael Breen, president of the center-left Truman Center and Truman National Security Project, warned against getting too optimistic. Breen is concerned about Trump’s haste and apparent lack of strategy. 

“A lot of people wanted to see the U.S. get more involved in Syria and wanted to see a response to the regime’s atrocities, but it is way too early to suddenly say Donald Trump is a different president than he was two days ago.”

Ryan Grim and Mike McAuliff contributed reporting.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2oSVXaw

[chpatdoorsl3z0a1]

Democrats Are Walking A Careful Line In Criticism Of Trump’s Syria Strike

WASHINGTON ― After President Donald Trump launched a Tomahawk missile strike on a Syrian airfield, the debate among congressional Democrats was not over the actual merits of bombing Syrian airfields but instead about Trump’s decision process.

The reaction of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the most progressive member of the Senate Democratic caucus, was a case in point.

“It is very questionable whether it is legal” to bomb the Syrian air force without congressional involvement, Sanders told The Huffington Post.

Some of Sanders’ colleagues were less equivocal, including Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who said this “certainly is not a lawful act.” On the other end of the spectrum, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said it “seems like a reasonable exercise of presidential power.” 

But only a handful of Democrats questioned the evidence that Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons on civilians, the efficacy of using force to address that crime or the overall pattern of U.S. involvement in the Middle East.

The relatively measured criticism from top Democrats reflects a complex array of factors that have again put the party out of step with some grassroots members. In many cases, Democratic lawmakers simply agree with the need to punish Assad for using chemical weapons on the town of Khan Sheikhoun, even as they are uneasy about Trump’s leadership, the legality of his actions or the consequences of a strike.

That leaves Democrats in an interesting political position. For months they have taken every opportunity to lambaste Trump as a threat to the very fabric of the American republic. And from Trump’s travel ban to the Obamacare replacement debacle, the strategy has largely paid off. Now, with Trump launching the first direct attacks on the Syrian government, Democrats are more ambivalent.

Larry Korb, a senior fellow at the Democratic-aligned Center for American Progress, said he was “not surprised” that Democrats were sympathetic to the idea of a retaliatory airstrike. Many Democrats subscribe to a “responsibility to protect” doctrine that swift force is justified to prevent major humanitarian catastrophes, according to Korb.

Democrats should be more concerned, Korb said, with the prospect of this leading to more significant U.S. intervention in Syria.

“The real question is: What comes next?” said Korb, who supported the Obama administration’s decision not to heed calls to arm Syrian rebel groups more aggressively or remove Assad by force.

The fact that Democrats may have substantial reasons to embrace the idea of retaliating against Assad does not diminish the divide between many elected leaders and the ardent anti-interventionism of the party’s base.

“My expectations [of Democrats] were very low, and my expectations were met,” said Phyllis Bennis, a foreign policy expert at the left-wing Institute for Policy Studies. “Am I disappointed that we don’t have an antiwar party? Yes, I am.”

Bennis represents a wing of the peace camp that believes military force, whether legal or not, is justified only in very limited circumstances of self-defense. The last U.S. intervention she considers “legitimate” was World War II.

Bennis and other progressive critics argue that there should be a full international investigation of the use of chemical weapons to determine definitively whether Assad is responsible, which they admit is extremely likely.

“Having a full investigation is not some sort of delaying tactic. It is essential to getting real accountability,” said Stephen Miles, director of the progressive Win Without War coalition.

The residue of the decision not to bomb in 2013 created an environment where the next time it happened, a strike was going to be a foregone conclusion. Steven Simon, former National Security Council official

That view got a high-profile boost from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who urged caution in an interview with The Globe and Mail on Thursday. Trudeau called for a United Nations Security Council resolution that will enable the world “to determine first of all who was responsible for these attacks and how we will move forward.”

Even if Assad’s guilt is established, punishing him militarily would not be an effective response, according to Miles of Win Without War. He supports removing the weapons from Syria, negotiating a diplomatic end to the war and trying alleged war criminals.

“The ultimate accountability comes from international tribunals,” Miles said. “It is really gratifying to blow things up, but that doesn’t make it accountability.” 

But Win Without War, Credo, MoveOn.org and Peace Action, which jointly condemned Trump’s strike as a “reckless act of war,” have largely mirrored Democrats’ talking points about the strikes’ legality in their mobilization strategy.

A petition Credo is circulating that quickly picked up over 57,000 signatures calls on Democrats to “rein in Donald Trump’s unauthorized military strikes and hold immediate emergency deliberations on Trump’s illegal escalation of military engagement in Syria.”

Miles praised House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for demanding that Congress reconvene to debate a new authorization for use of military force ― and saved his criticism for Democratic lawmakers, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who voiced unreserved agreement with Trump’s decision.

“It’s not the first time we have seen Democrats in Congress who are way out of touch with where their base is,” he said.

Democrats have often chafed under Republican claims that they are weak on national security. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, critics saw signs of this insecurity in the ease with which Democratic lawmakers lined up behind then-President George W. Bush’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

But veteran Democratic foreign policy thinkers argue that Democrats’ ambivalence about President Trump’s missile strikes against Assad have more to do with former President Barack Obama and his foreign policy legacy than the ghosts of the Bush presidency.

Obama famously warned the Syrian government that use of chemical weapons would cross a “red line,” forcing the United States to consider military action against Assad’s regime.

When the U.S. concluded in August 2013 that Assad had used chemical weapons against civilians in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, Obama announced plans to launch missile strikes against Syrian military targets.

After the British Parliament rejected a bid for the United Kingdom to participate in the strike, Obama decided to seek congressional approval for the move. It soon became clear that the strike faced bipartisan opposition, and the White House pulled the request.

Despite public opposition to the retaliatory strike, Obama endured a lot of criticism, including from members of his own party, for not honoring his “red line” ultimatum, undermining U.S. credibility.

“The residue of the decision not to bomb in 2013 created an environment where the next time it happened a strike was going to be a foregone conclusion. There’d be no alternative,” said Steven Simon, who was senior director of Middle Eastern and North African affairs on Obama’s National Security Council in 2011 and 2012.

That leaves Democrats who want to avoid a replay of 2013 with limited grounds on which to criticize Trump, admitted Simon, now a history professor at Amherst College.

“They have sort of squared the circle by applauding the use of force but registering concerns about lack of congressional consultation,” Simon said.

Then there is the matter of deeper disagreement within the Democratic Party about Obama’s broader policy toward Syria. Obama rejected the suggestions of many advisers, including then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to intervene more forcefully to protect Syrian civilians and speed up Assad’s ouster. Those disagreements were evident in Clinton’s campaign promise to create a no-fly zone in Syria, as well as her calls Thursday for the U.S. to take out all of Assad’s airfields ― a more ambitious step than Trump ended up taking.

Clinton and other proponents of greater intervention in Syria argue that by declining to diminish Assad, the U.S. will never have the leverage needed to stop his atrocities and forge a diplomatic solution.

As a candidate, Trump ran against Clinton’s strategy, repeatedly insisting that Assad was preferable to the Syrian groups trying to overthrow him.

For Democrats hoping Trump would adopt a more Clintonian approach, it is tempting to view his strike on the Syrian airfield as the beginning of a recognition that Assad must face greater pressure, including the threat of force, to end the conflict.

But one such proponent of more robust action, Michael Breen, president of the center-left Truman Center and Truman National Security Project, warned against getting too optimistic. Breen is concerned about Trump’s haste and apparent lack of strategy. 

“A lot of people wanted to see the U.S. get more involved in Syria and wanted to see a response to the regime’s atrocities, but it is way too early to suddenly say Donald Trump is a different president than he was two days ago.”

Ryan Grim and Mike McAuliff contributed reporting.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2oSVXaw

[repwincoml4a0a5]

Democrats Are Walking A Careful Line In Criticism Of Trump’s Syria Strike

WASHINGTON ― After President Donald Trump launched a Tomahawk missile strike on a Syrian airfield, the debate among congressional Democrats was not over the actual merits of bombing Syrian airfields but instead about Trump’s decision process.

The reaction of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the most progressive member of the Senate Democratic caucus, was a case in point.

“It is very questionable whether it is legal” to bomb the Syrian air force without congressional involvement, Sanders told The Huffington Post.

Some of Sanders’ colleagues were less equivocal, including Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who said this “certainly is not a lawful act.” On the other end of the spectrum, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said it “seems like a reasonable exercise of presidential power.” 

But only a handful of Democrats questioned the evidence that Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons on civilians, the efficacy of using force to address that crime or the overall pattern of U.S. involvement in the Middle East.

The relatively measured criticism from top Democrats reflects a complex array of factors that have again put the party out of step with some grassroots members. In many cases, Democratic lawmakers simply agree with the need to punish Assad for using chemical weapons on the town of Khan Sheikhoun, even as they are uneasy about Trump’s leadership, the legality of his actions or the consequences of a strike.

That leaves Democrats in an interesting political position. For months they have taken every opportunity to lambaste Trump as a threat to the very fabric of the American republic. And from Trump’s travel ban to the Obamacare replacement debacle, the strategy has largely paid off. Now, with Trump launching the first direct attacks on the Syrian government, Democrats are more ambivalent.

Larry Korb, a senior fellow at the Democratic-aligned Center for American Progress, said he was “not surprised” that Democrats were sympathetic to the idea of a retaliatory airstrike. Many Democrats subscribe to a “responsibility to protect” doctrine that swift force is justified to prevent major humanitarian catastrophes, according to Korb.

Democrats should be more concerned, Korb said, with the prospect of this leading to more significant U.S. intervention in Syria.

“The real question is: What comes next?” said Korb, who supported the Obama administration’s decision not to heed calls to arm Syrian rebel groups more aggressively or remove Assad by force.

The fact that Democrats may have substantial reasons to embrace the idea of retaliating against Assad does not diminish the divide between many elected leaders and the ardent anti-interventionism of the party’s base.

“My expectations [of Democrats] were very low, and my expectations were met,” said Phyllis Bennis, a foreign policy expert at the left-wing Institute for Policy Studies. “Am I disappointed that we don’t have an antiwar party? Yes, I am.”

Bennis represents a wing of the peace camp that believes military force, whether legal or not, is justified only in very limited circumstances of self-defense. The last U.S. intervention she considers “legitimate” was World War II.

Bennis and other progressive critics argue that there should be a full international investigation of the use of chemical weapons to determine definitively whether Assad is responsible, which they admit is extremely likely.

“Having a full investigation is not some sort of delaying tactic. It is essential to getting real accountability,” said Stephen Miles, director of the progressive Win Without War coalition.

The residue of the decision not to bomb in 2013 created an environment where the next time it happened, a strike was going to be a foregone conclusion. Steven Simon, former National Security Council official

That view got a high-profile boost from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who urged caution in an interview with The Globe and Mail on Thursday. Trudeau called for a United Nations Security Council resolution that will enable the world “to determine first of all who was responsible for these attacks and how we will move forward.”

Even if Assad’s guilt is established, punishing him militarily would not be an effective response, according to Miles of Win Without War. He supports removing the weapons from Syria, negotiating a diplomatic end to the war and trying alleged war criminals.

“The ultimate accountability comes from international tribunals,” Miles said. “It is really gratifying to blow things up, but that doesn’t make it accountability.” 

But Win Without War, Credo, MoveOn.org and Peace Action, which jointly condemned Trump’s strike as a “reckless act of war,” have largely mirrored Democrats’ talking points about the strikes’ legality in their mobilization strategy.

A petition Credo is circulating that quickly picked up over 57,000 signatures calls on Democrats to “rein in Donald Trump’s unauthorized military strikes and hold immediate emergency deliberations on Trump’s illegal escalation of military engagement in Syria.”

Miles praised House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for demanding that Congress reconvene to debate a new authorization for use of military force ― and saved his criticism for Democratic lawmakers, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who voiced unreserved agreement with Trump’s decision.

“It’s not the first time we have seen Democrats in Congress who are way out of touch with where their base is,” he said.

Democrats have often chafed under Republican claims that they are weak on national security. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, critics saw signs of this insecurity in the ease with which Democratic lawmakers lined up behind then-President George W. Bush’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

But veteran Democratic foreign policy thinkers argue that Democrats’ ambivalence about President Trump’s missile strikes against Assad have more to do with former President Barack Obama and his foreign policy legacy than the ghosts of the Bush presidency.

Obama famously warned the Syrian government that use of chemical weapons would cross a “red line,” forcing the United States to consider military action against Assad’s regime.

When the U.S. concluded in August 2013 that Assad had used chemical weapons against civilians in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, Obama announced plans to launch missile strikes against Syrian military targets.

After the British Parliament rejected a bid for the United Kingdom to participate in the strike, Obama decided to seek congressional approval for the move. It soon became clear that the strike faced bipartisan opposition, and the White House pulled the request.

Despite public opposition to the retaliatory strike, Obama endured a lot of criticism, including from members of his own party, for not honoring his “red line” ultimatum, undermining U.S. credibility.

“The residue of the decision not to bomb in 2013 created an environment where the next time it happened a strike was going to be a foregone conclusion. There’d be no alternative,” said Steven Simon, who was senior director of Middle Eastern and North African affairs on Obama’s National Security Council in 2011 and 2012.

That leaves Democrats who want to avoid a replay of 2013 with limited grounds on which to criticize Trump, admitted Simon, now a history professor at Amherst College.

“They have sort of squared the circle by applauding the use of force but registering concerns about lack of congressional consultation,” Simon said.

Then there is the matter of deeper disagreement within the Democratic Party about Obama’s broader policy toward Syria. Obama rejected the suggestions of many advisers, including then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to intervene more forcefully to protect Syrian civilians and speed up Assad’s ouster. Those disagreements were evident in Clinton’s campaign promise to create a no-fly zone in Syria, as well as her calls Thursday for the U.S. to take out all of Assad’s airfields ― a more ambitious step than Trump ended up taking.

Clinton and other proponents of greater intervention in Syria argue that by declining to diminish Assad, the U.S. will never have the leverage needed to stop his atrocities and forge a diplomatic solution.

As a candidate, Trump ran against Clinton’s strategy, repeatedly insisting that Assad was preferable to the Syrian groups trying to overthrow him.

For Democrats hoping Trump would adopt a more Clintonian approach, it is tempting to view his strike on the Syrian airfield as the beginning of a recognition that Assad must face greater pressure, including the threat of force, to end the conflict.

But one such proponent of more robust action, Michael Breen, president of the center-left Truman Center and Truman National Security Project, warned against getting too optimistic. Breen is concerned about Trump’s haste and apparent lack of strategy. 

“A lot of people wanted to see the U.S. get more involved in Syria and wanted to see a response to the regime’s atrocities, but it is way too early to suddenly say Donald Trump is a different president than he was two days ago.”

Ryan Grim and Mike McAuliff contributed reporting.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2oSVXaw

[rtawngs20815]

Democrats Are Walking A Careful Line In Criticism Of Trump’s Syria Strike

WASHINGTON ― After President Donald Trump launched a Tomahawk missile strike on a Syrian airfield, the debate among congressional Democrats was not over the actual merits of bombing Syrian airfields but instead about Trump’s decision process.

The reaction of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the most progressive member of the Senate Democratic caucus, was a case in point.

“It is very questionable whether it is legal” to bomb the Syrian air force without congressional involvement, Sanders told The Huffington Post.

Some of Sanders’ colleagues were less equivocal, including Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who said this “certainly is not a lawful act.” On the other end of the spectrum, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said it “seems like a reasonable exercise of presidential power.” 

But only a handful of Democrats questioned the evidence that Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons on civilians, the efficacy of using force to address that crime or the overall pattern of U.S. involvement in the Middle East.

The relatively measured criticism from top Democrats reflects a complex array of factors that have again put the party out of step with some grassroots members. In many cases, Democratic lawmakers simply agree with the need to punish Assad for using chemical weapons on the town of Khan Sheikhoun, even as they are uneasy about Trump’s leadership, the legality of his actions or the consequences of a strike.

That leaves Democrats in an interesting political position. For months they have taken every opportunity to lambaste Trump as a threat to the very fabric of the American republic. And from Trump’s travel ban to the Obamacare replacement debacle, the strategy has largely paid off. Now, with Trump launching the first direct attacks on the Syrian government, Democrats are more ambivalent.

Larry Korb, a senior fellow at the Democratic-aligned Center for American Progress, said he was “not surprised” that Democrats were sympathetic to the idea of a retaliatory airstrike. Many Democrats subscribe to a “responsibility to protect” doctrine that swift force is justified to prevent major humanitarian catastrophes, according to Korb.

Democrats should be more concerned, Korb said, with the prospect of this leading to more significant U.S. intervention in Syria.

“The real question is: What comes next?” said Korb, who supported the Obama administration’s decision not to heed calls to arm Syrian rebel groups more aggressively or remove Assad by force.

The fact that Democrats may have substantial reasons to embrace the idea of retaliating against Assad does not diminish the divide between many elected leaders and the ardent anti-interventionism of the party’s base.

“My expectations [of Democrats] were very low, and my expectations were met,” said Phyllis Bennis, a foreign policy expert at the left-wing Institute for Policy Studies. “Am I disappointed that we don’t have an antiwar party? Yes, I am.”

Bennis represents a wing of the peace camp that believes military force, whether legal or not, is justified only in very limited circumstances of self-defense. The last U.S. intervention she considers “legitimate” was World War II.

Bennis and other progressive critics argue that there should be a full international investigation of the use of chemical weapons to determine definitively whether Assad is responsible, which they admit is extremely likely.

“Having a full investigation is not some sort of delaying tactic. It is essential to getting real accountability,” said Stephen Miles, director of the progressive Win Without War coalition.

The residue of the decision not to bomb in 2013 created an environment where the next time it happened, a strike was going to be a foregone conclusion. Steven Simon, former National Security Council official

That view got a high-profile boost from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who urged caution in an interview with The Globe and Mail on Thursday. Trudeau called for a United Nations Security Council resolution that will enable the world “to determine first of all who was responsible for these attacks and how we will move forward.”

Even if Assad’s guilt is established, punishing him militarily would not be an effective response, according to Miles of Win Without War. He supports removing the weapons from Syria, negotiating a diplomatic end to the war and trying alleged war criminals.

“The ultimate accountability comes from international tribunals,” Miles said. “It is really gratifying to blow things up, but that doesn’t make it accountability.” 

But Win Without War, Credo, MoveOn.org and Peace Action, which jointly condemned Trump’s strike as a “reckless act of war,” have largely mirrored Democrats’ talking points about the strikes’ legality in their mobilization strategy.

A petition Credo is circulating that quickly picked up over 57,000 signatures calls on Democrats to “rein in Donald Trump’s unauthorized military strikes and hold immediate emergency deliberations on Trump’s illegal escalation of military engagement in Syria.”

Miles praised House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for demanding that Congress reconvene to debate a new authorization for use of military force ― and saved his criticism for Democratic lawmakers, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who voiced unreserved agreement with Trump’s decision.

“It’s not the first time we have seen Democrats in Congress who are way out of touch with where their base is,” he said.

Democrats have often chafed under Republican claims that they are weak on national security. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, critics saw signs of this insecurity in the ease with which Democratic lawmakers lined up behind then-President George W. Bush’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

But veteran Democratic foreign policy thinkers argue that Democrats’ ambivalence about President Trump’s missile strikes against Assad have more to do with former President Barack Obama and his foreign policy legacy than the ghosts of the Bush presidency.

Obama famously warned the Syrian government that use of chemical weapons would cross a “red line,” forcing the United States to consider military action against Assad’s regime.

When the U.S. concluded in August 2013 that Assad had used chemical weapons against civilians in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, Obama announced plans to launch missile strikes against Syrian military targets.

After the British Parliament rejected a bid for the United Kingdom to participate in the strike, Obama decided to seek congressional approval for the move. It soon became clear that the strike faced bipartisan opposition, and the White House pulled the request.

Despite public opposition to the retaliatory strike, Obama endured a lot of criticism, including from members of his own party, for not honoring his “red line” ultimatum, undermining U.S. credibility.

“The residue of the decision not to bomb in 2013 created an environment where the next time it happened a strike was going to be a foregone conclusion. There’d be no alternative,” said Steven Simon, who was senior director of Middle Eastern and North African affairs on Obama’s National Security Council in 2011 and 2012.

That leaves Democrats who want to avoid a replay of 2013 with limited grounds on which to criticize Trump, admitted Simon, now a history professor at Amherst College.

“They have sort of squared the circle by applauding the use of force but registering concerns about lack of congressional consultation,” Simon said.

Then there is the matter of deeper disagreement within the Democratic Party about Obama’s broader policy toward Syria. Obama rejected the suggestions of many advisers, including then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to intervene more forcefully to protect Syrian civilians and speed up Assad’s ouster. Those disagreements were evident in Clinton’s campaign promise to create a no-fly zone in Syria, as well as her calls Thursday for the U.S. to take out all of Assad’s airfields ― a more ambitious step than Trump ended up taking.

Clinton and other proponents of greater intervention in Syria argue that by declining to diminish Assad, the U.S. will never have the leverage needed to stop his atrocities and forge a diplomatic solution.

As a candidate, Trump ran against Clinton’s strategy, repeatedly insisting that Assad was preferable to the Syrian groups trying to overthrow him.

For Democrats hoping Trump would adopt a more Clintonian approach, it is tempting to view his strike on the Syrian airfield as the beginning of a recognition that Assad must face greater pressure, including the threat of force, to end the conflict.

But one such proponent of more robust action, Michael Breen, president of the center-left Truman Center and Truman National Security Project, warned against getting too optimistic. Breen is concerned about Trump’s haste and apparent lack of strategy. 

“A lot of people wanted to see the U.S. get more involved in Syria and wanted to see a response to the regime’s atrocities, but it is way too early to suddenly say Donald Trump is a different president than he was two days ago.”

Ryan Grim and Mike McAuliff contributed reporting.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2oSVXaw

[repwinpril9y0a1]

Democrats Are Walking A Careful Line In Criticism Of Trump’s Syria Strike

WASHINGTON ― After President Donald Trump launched a Tomahawk missile strike on a Syrian airfield, the debate among congressional Democrats was not over the actual merits of bombing Syrian airfields but instead about Trump’s decision process.

The reaction of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the most progressive member of the Senate Democratic caucus, was a case in point.

“It is very questionable whether it is legal” to bomb the Syrian air force without congressional involvement, Sanders told The Huffington Post.

Some of Sanders’ colleagues were less equivocal, including Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who said this “certainly is not a lawful act.” On the other end of the spectrum, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said it “seems like a reasonable exercise of presidential power.” 

But only a handful of Democrats questioned the evidence that Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons on civilians, the efficacy of using force to address that crime or the overall pattern of U.S. involvement in the Middle East.

The relatively measured criticism from top Democrats reflects a complex array of factors that have again put the party out of step with some grassroots members. In many cases, Democratic lawmakers simply agree with the need to punish Assad for using chemical weapons on the town of Khan Sheikhoun, even as they are uneasy about Trump’s leadership, the legality of his actions or the consequences of a strike.

That leaves Democrats in an interesting political position. For months they have taken every opportunity to lambaste Trump as a threat to the very fabric of the American republic. And from Trump’s travel ban to the Obamacare replacement debacle, the strategy has largely paid off. Now, with Trump launching the first direct attacks on the Syrian government, Democrats are more ambivalent.

Larry Korb, a senior fellow at the Democratic-aligned Center for American Progress, said he was “not surprised” that Democrats were sympathetic to the idea of a retaliatory airstrike. Many Democrats subscribe to a “responsibility to protect” doctrine that swift force is justified to prevent major humanitarian catastrophes, according to Korb.

Democrats should be more concerned, Korb said, with the prospect of this leading to more significant U.S. intervention in Syria.

“The real question is: What comes next?” said Korb, who supported the Obama administration’s decision not to heed calls to arm Syrian rebel groups more aggressively or remove Assad by force.

The fact that Democrats may have substantial reasons to embrace the idea of retaliating against Assad does not diminish the divide between many elected leaders and the ardent anti-interventionism of the party’s base.

“My expectations [of Democrats] were very low, and my expectations were met,” said Phyllis Bennis, a foreign policy expert at the left-wing Institute for Policy Studies. “Am I disappointed that we don’t have an antiwar party? Yes, I am.”

Bennis represents a wing of the peace camp that believes military force, whether legal or not, is justified only in very limited circumstances of self-defense. The last U.S. intervention she considers “legitimate” was World War II.

Bennis and other progressive critics argue that there should be a full international investigation of the use of chemical weapons to determine definitively whether Assad is responsible, which they admit is extremely likely.

“Having a full investigation is not some sort of delaying tactic. It is essential to getting real accountability,” said Stephen Miles, director of the progressive Win Without War coalition.

The residue of the decision not to bomb in 2013 created an environment where the next time it happened, a strike was going to be a foregone conclusion. Steven Simon, former National Security Council official

That view got a high-profile boost from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who urged caution in an interview with The Globe and Mail on Thursday. Trudeau called for a United Nations Security Council resolution that will enable the world “to determine first of all who was responsible for these attacks and how we will move forward.”

Even if Assad’s guilt is established, punishing him militarily would not be an effective response, according to Miles of Win Without War. He supports removing the weapons from Syria, negotiating a diplomatic end to the war and trying alleged war criminals.

“The ultimate accountability comes from international tribunals,” Miles said. “It is really gratifying to blow things up, but that doesn’t make it accountability.” 

But Win Without War, Credo, MoveOn.org and Peace Action, which jointly condemned Trump’s strike as a “reckless act of war,” have largely mirrored Democrats’ talking points about the strikes’ legality in their mobilization strategy.

A petition Credo is circulating that quickly picked up over 57,000 signatures calls on Democrats to “rein in Donald Trump’s unauthorized military strikes and hold immediate emergency deliberations on Trump’s illegal escalation of military engagement in Syria.”

Miles praised House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for demanding that Congress reconvene to debate a new authorization for use of military force ― and saved his criticism for Democratic lawmakers, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who voiced unreserved agreement with Trump’s decision.

“It’s not the first time we have seen Democrats in Congress who are way out of touch with where their base is,” he said.

Democrats have often chafed under Republican claims that they are weak on national security. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, critics saw signs of this insecurity in the ease with which Democratic lawmakers lined up behind then-President George W. Bush’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

But veteran Democratic foreign policy thinkers argue that Democrats’ ambivalence about President Trump’s missile strikes against Assad have more to do with former President Barack Obama and his foreign policy legacy than the ghosts of the Bush presidency.

Obama famously warned the Syrian government that use of chemical weapons would cross a “red line,” forcing the United States to consider military action against Assad’s regime.

When the U.S. concluded in August 2013 that Assad had used chemical weapons against civilians in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, Obama announced plans to launch missile strikes against Syrian military targets.

After the British Parliament rejected a bid for the United Kingdom to participate in the strike, Obama decided to seek congressional approval for the move. It soon became clear that the strike faced bipartisan opposition, and the White House pulled the request.

Despite public opposition to the retaliatory strike, Obama endured a lot of criticism, including from members of his own party, for not honoring his “red line” ultimatum, undermining U.S. credibility.

“The residue of the decision not to bomb in 2013 created an environment where the next time it happened a strike was going to be a foregone conclusion. There’d be no alternative,” said Steven Simon, who was senior director of Middle Eastern and North African affairs on Obama’s National Security Council in 2011 and 2012.

That leaves Democrats who want to avoid a replay of 2013 with limited grounds on which to criticize Trump, admitted Simon, now a history professor at Amherst College.

“They have sort of squared the circle by applauding the use of force but registering concerns about lack of congressional consultation,” Simon said.

Then there is the matter of deeper disagreement within the Democratic Party about Obama’s broader policy toward Syria. Obama rejected the suggestions of many advisers, including then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to intervene more forcefully to protect Syrian civilians and speed up Assad’s ouster. Those disagreements were evident in Clinton’s campaign promise to create a no-fly zone in Syria, as well as her calls Thursday for the U.S. to take out all of Assad’s airfields ― a more ambitious step than Trump ended up taking.

Clinton and other proponents of greater intervention in Syria argue that by declining to diminish Assad, the U.S. will never have the leverage needed to stop his atrocities and forge a diplomatic solution.

As a candidate, Trump ran against Clinton’s strategy, repeatedly insisting that Assad was preferable to the Syrian groups trying to overthrow him.

For Democrats hoping Trump would adopt a more Clintonian approach, it is tempting to view his strike on the Syrian airfield as the beginning of a recognition that Assad must face greater pressure, including the threat of force, to end the conflict.

But one such proponent of more robust action, Michael Breen, president of the center-left Truman Center and Truman National Security Project, warned against getting too optimistic. Breen is concerned about Trump’s haste and apparent lack of strategy. 

“A lot of people wanted to see the U.S. get more involved in Syria and wanted to see a response to the regime’s atrocities, but it is way too early to suddenly say Donald Trump is a different president than he was two days ago.”

Ryan Grim and Mike McAuliff contributed reporting.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2oSVXaw

[repwincostl4m0a2]

Democrats Are Walking A Careful Line In Criticism Of Trump’s Syria Strike

WASHINGTON ― After President Donald Trump launched a Tomahawk missile strike on a Syrian airfield, the debate among congressional Democrats was not over the actual merits of bombing Syrian airfields but instead about Trump’s decision process.

The reaction of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the most progressive member of the Senate Democratic caucus, was a case in point.

“It is very questionable whether it is legal” to bomb the Syrian air force without congressional involvement, Sanders told The Huffington Post.

Some of Sanders’ colleagues were less equivocal, including Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who said this “certainly is not a lawful act.” On the other end of the spectrum, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said it “seems like a reasonable exercise of presidential power.” 

But only a handful of Democrats questioned the evidence that Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons on civilians, the efficacy of using force to address that crime or the overall pattern of U.S. involvement in the Middle East.

The relatively measured criticism from top Democrats reflects a complex array of factors that have again put the party out of step with some grassroots members. In many cases, Democratic lawmakers simply agree with the need to punish Assad for using chemical weapons on the town of Khan Sheikhoun, even as they are uneasy about Trump’s leadership, the legality of his actions or the consequences of a strike.

That leaves Democrats in an interesting political position. For months they have taken every opportunity to lambaste Trump as a threat to the very fabric of the American republic. And from Trump’s travel ban to the Obamacare replacement debacle, the strategy has largely paid off. Now, with Trump launching the first direct attacks on the Syrian government, Democrats are more ambivalent.

Larry Korb, a senior fellow at the Democratic-aligned Center for American Progress, said he was “not surprised” that Democrats were sympathetic to the idea of a retaliatory airstrike. Many Democrats subscribe to a “responsibility to protect” doctrine that swift force is justified to prevent major humanitarian catastrophes, according to Korb.

Democrats should be more concerned, Korb said, with the prospect of this leading to more significant U.S. intervention in Syria.

“The real question is: What comes next?” said Korb, who supported the Obama administration’s decision not to heed calls to arm Syrian rebel groups more aggressively or remove Assad by force.

The fact that Democrats may have substantial reasons to embrace the idea of retaliating against Assad does not diminish the divide between many elected leaders and the ardent anti-interventionism of the party’s base.

“My expectations [of Democrats] were very low, and my expectations were met,” said Phyllis Bennis, a foreign policy expert at the left-wing Institute for Policy Studies. “Am I disappointed that we don’t have an antiwar party? Yes, I am.”

Bennis represents a wing of the peace camp that believes military force, whether legal or not, is justified only in very limited circumstances of self-defense. The last U.S. intervention she considers “legitimate” was World War II.

Bennis and other progressive critics argue that there should be a full international investigation of the use of chemical weapons to determine definitively whether Assad is responsible, which they admit is extremely likely.

“Having a full investigation is not some sort of delaying tactic. It is essential to getting real accountability,” said Stephen Miles, director of the progressive Win Without War coalition.

The residue of the decision not to bomb in 2013 created an environment where the next time it happened, a strike was going to be a foregone conclusion. Steven Simon, former National Security Council official

That view got a high-profile boost from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who urged caution in an interview with The Globe and Mail on Thursday. Trudeau called for a United Nations Security Council resolution that will enable the world “to determine first of all who was responsible for these attacks and how we will move forward.”

Even if Assad’s guilt is established, punishing him militarily would not be an effective response, according to Miles of Win Without War. He supports removing the weapons from Syria, negotiating a diplomatic end to the war and trying alleged war criminals.

“The ultimate accountability comes from international tribunals,” Miles said. “It is really gratifying to blow things up, but that doesn’t make it accountability.” 

But Win Without War, Credo, MoveOn.org and Peace Action, which jointly condemned Trump’s strike as a “reckless act of war,” have largely mirrored Democrats’ talking points about the strikes’ legality in their mobilization strategy.

A petition Credo is circulating that quickly picked up over 57,000 signatures calls on Democrats to “rein in Donald Trump’s unauthorized military strikes and hold immediate emergency deliberations on Trump’s illegal escalation of military engagement in Syria.”

Miles praised House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for demanding that Congress reconvene to debate a new authorization for use of military force ― and saved his criticism for Democratic lawmakers, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who voiced unreserved agreement with Trump’s decision.

“It’s not the first time we have seen Democrats in Congress who are way out of touch with where their base is,” he said.

Democrats have often chafed under Republican claims that they are weak on national security. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, critics saw signs of this insecurity in the ease with which Democratic lawmakers lined up behind then-President George W. Bush’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

But veteran Democratic foreign policy thinkers argue that Democrats’ ambivalence about President Trump’s missile strikes against Assad have more to do with former President Barack Obama and his foreign policy legacy than the ghosts of the Bush presidency.

Obama famously warned the Syrian government that use of chemical weapons would cross a “red line,” forcing the United States to consider military action against Assad’s regime.

When the U.S. concluded in August 2013 that Assad had used chemical weapons against civilians in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, Obama announced plans to launch missile strikes against Syrian military targets.

After the British Parliament rejected a bid for the United Kingdom to participate in the strike, Obama decided to seek congressional approval for the move. It soon became clear that the strike faced bipartisan opposition, and the White House pulled the request.

Despite public opposition to the retaliatory strike, Obama endured a lot of criticism, including from members of his own party, for not honoring his “red line” ultimatum, undermining U.S. credibility.

“The residue of the decision not to bomb in 2013 created an environment where the next time it happened a strike was going to be a foregone conclusion. There’d be no alternative,” said Steven Simon, who was senior director of Middle Eastern and North African affairs on Obama’s National Security Council in 2011 and 2012.

That leaves Democrats who want to avoid a replay of 2013 with limited grounds on which to criticize Trump, admitted Simon, now a history professor at Amherst College.

“They have sort of squared the circle by applauding the use of force but registering concerns about lack of congressional consultation,” Simon said.

Then there is the matter of deeper disagreement within the Democratic Party about Obama’s broader policy toward Syria. Obama rejected the suggestions of many advisers, including then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to intervene more forcefully to protect Syrian civilians and speed up Assad’s ouster. Those disagreements were evident in Clinton’s campaign promise to create a no-fly zone in Syria, as well as her calls Thursday for the U.S. to take out all of Assad’s airfields ― a more ambitious step than Trump ended up taking.

Clinton and other proponents of greater intervention in Syria argue that by declining to diminish Assad, the U.S. will never have the leverage needed to stop his atrocities and forge a diplomatic solution.

As a candidate, Trump ran against Clinton’s strategy, repeatedly insisting that Assad was preferable to the Syrian groups trying to overthrow him.

For Democrats hoping Trump would adopt a more Clintonian approach, it is tempting to view his strike on the Syrian airfield as the beginning of a recognition that Assad must face greater pressure, including the threat of force, to end the conflict.

But one such proponent of more robust action, Michael Breen, president of the center-left Truman Center and Truman National Security Project, warned against getting too optimistic. Breen is concerned about Trump’s haste and apparent lack of strategy. 

“A lot of people wanted to see the U.S. get more involved in Syria and wanted to see a response to the regime’s atrocities, but it is way too early to suddenly say Donald Trump is a different president than he was two days ago.”

Ryan Grim and Mike McAuliff contributed reporting.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2oSVXaw

[porchenclose10019]

Democrats Are Walking A Careful Line In Criticism Of Trump’s Syria Strike

WASHINGTON ― After President Donald Trump launched a Tomahawk missile strike on a Syrian airfield, the debate among congressional Democrats was not over the actual merits of bombing Syrian airfields but instead about Trump’s decision process.

The reaction of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the most progressive member of the Senate Democratic caucus, was a case in point.

“It is very questionable whether it is legal” to bomb the Syrian air force without congressional involvement, Sanders told The Huffington Post.

Some of Sanders’ colleagues were less equivocal, including Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who said this “certainly is not a lawful act.” On the other end of the spectrum, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said it “seems like a reasonable exercise of presidential power.” 

But only a handful of Democrats questioned the evidence that Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons on civilians, the efficacy of using force to address that crime or the overall pattern of U.S. involvement in the Middle East.

The relatively measured criticism from top Democrats reflects a complex array of factors that have again put the party out of step with some grassroots members. In many cases, Democratic lawmakers simply agree with the need to punish Assad for using chemical weapons on the town of Khan Sheikhoun, even as they are uneasy about Trump’s leadership, the legality of his actions or the consequences of a strike.

That leaves Democrats in an interesting political position. For months they have taken every opportunity to lambaste Trump as a threat to the very fabric of the American republic. And from Trump’s travel ban to the Obamacare replacement debacle, the strategy has largely paid off. Now, with Trump launching the first direct attacks on the Syrian government, Democrats are more ambivalent.

Larry Korb, a senior fellow at the Democratic-aligned Center for American Progress, said he was “not surprised” that Democrats were sympathetic to the idea of a retaliatory airstrike. Many Democrats subscribe to a “responsibility to protect” doctrine that swift force is justified to prevent major humanitarian catastrophes, according to Korb.

Democrats should be more concerned, Korb said, with the prospect of this leading to more significant U.S. intervention in Syria.

“The real question is: What comes next?” said Korb, who supported the Obama administration’s decision not to heed calls to arm Syrian rebel groups more aggressively or remove Assad by force.

The fact that Democrats may have substantial reasons to embrace the idea of retaliating against Assad does not diminish the divide between many elected leaders and the ardent anti-interventionism of the party’s base.

“My expectations [of Democrats] were very low, and my expectations were met,” said Phyllis Bennis, a foreign policy expert at the left-wing Institute for Policy Studies. “Am I disappointed that we don’t have an antiwar party? Yes, I am.”

Bennis represents a wing of the peace camp that believes military force, whether legal or not, is justified only in very limited circumstances of self-defense. The last U.S. intervention she considers “legitimate” was World War II.

Bennis and other progressive critics argue that there should be a full international investigation of the use of chemical weapons to determine definitively whether Assad is responsible, which they admit is extremely likely.

“Having a full investigation is not some sort of delaying tactic. It is essential to getting real accountability,” said Stephen Miles, director of the progressive Win Without War coalition.

The residue of the decision not to bomb in 2013 created an environment where the next time it happened, a strike was going to be a foregone conclusion. Steven Simon, former National Security Council official

That view got a high-profile boost from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who urged caution in an interview with The Globe and Mail on Thursday. Trudeau called for a United Nations Security Council resolution that will enable the world “to determine first of all who was responsible for these attacks and how we will move forward.”

Even if Assad’s guilt is established, punishing him militarily would not be an effective response, according to Miles of Win Without War. He supports removing the weapons from Syria, negotiating a diplomatic end to the war and trying alleged war criminals.

“The ultimate accountability comes from international tribunals,” Miles said. “It is really gratifying to blow things up, but that doesn’t make it accountability.” 

But Win Without War, Credo, MoveOn.org and Peace Action, which jointly condemned Trump’s strike as a “reckless act of war,” have largely mirrored Democrats’ talking points about the strikes’ legality in their mobilization strategy.

A petition Credo is circulating that quickly picked up over 57,000 signatures calls on Democrats to “rein in Donald Trump’s unauthorized military strikes and hold immediate emergency deliberations on Trump’s illegal escalation of military engagement in Syria.”

Miles praised House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for demanding that Congress reconvene to debate a new authorization for use of military force ― and saved his criticism for Democratic lawmakers, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who voiced unreserved agreement with Trump’s decision.

“It’s not the first time we have seen Democrats in Congress who are way out of touch with where their base is,” he said.

Democrats have often chafed under Republican claims that they are weak on national security. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, critics saw signs of this insecurity in the ease with which Democratic lawmakers lined up behind then-President George W. Bush’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

But veteran Democratic foreign policy thinkers argue that Democrats’ ambivalence about President Trump’s missile strikes against Assad have more to do with former President Barack Obama and his foreign policy legacy than the ghosts of the Bush presidency.

Obama famously warned the Syrian government that use of chemical weapons would cross a “red line,” forcing the United States to consider military action against Assad’s regime.

When the U.S. concluded in August 2013 that Assad had used chemical weapons against civilians in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, Obama announced plans to launch missile strikes against Syrian military targets.

After the British Parliament rejected a bid for the United Kingdom to participate in the strike, Obama decided to seek congressional approval for the move. It soon became clear that the strike faced bipartisan opposition, and the White House pulled the request.

Despite public opposition to the retaliatory strike, Obama endured a lot of criticism, including from members of his own party, for not honoring his “red line” ultimatum, undermining U.S. credibility.

“The residue of the decision not to bomb in 2013 created an environment where the next time it happened a strike was going to be a foregone conclusion. There’d be no alternative,” said Steven Simon, who was senior director of Middle Eastern and North African affairs on Obama’s National Security Council in 2011 and 2012.

That leaves Democrats who want to avoid a replay of 2013 with limited grounds on which to criticize Trump, admitted Simon, now a history professor at Amherst College.

“They have sort of squared the circle by applauding the use of force but registering concerns about lack of congressional consultation,” Simon said.

Then there is the matter of deeper disagreement within the Democratic Party about Obama’s broader policy toward Syria. Obama rejected the suggestions of many advisers, including then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to intervene more forcefully to protect Syrian civilians and speed up Assad’s ouster. Those disagreements were evident in Clinton’s campaign promise to create a no-fly zone in Syria, as well as her calls Thursday for the U.S. to take out all of Assad’s airfields ― a more ambitious step than Trump ended up taking.

Clinton and other proponents of greater intervention in Syria argue that by declining to diminish Assad, the U.S. will never have the leverage needed to stop his atrocities and forge a diplomatic solution.

As a candidate, Trump ran against Clinton’s strategy, repeatedly insisting that Assad was preferable to the Syrian groups trying to overthrow him.

For Democrats hoping Trump would adopt a more Clintonian approach, it is tempting to view his strike on the Syrian airfield as the beginning of a recognition that Assad must face greater pressure, including the threat of force, to end the conflict.

But one such proponent of more robust action, Michael Breen, president of the center-left Truman Center and Truman National Security Project, warned against getting too optimistic. Breen is concerned about Trump’s haste and apparent lack of strategy. 

“A lot of people wanted to see the U.S. get more involved in Syria and wanted to see a response to the regime’s atrocities, but it is way too early to suddenly say Donald Trump is a different president than he was two days ago.”

Ryan Grim and Mike McAuliff contributed reporting.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2oSVXaw

[grgedoors02142]

Democrats Are Walking A Careful Line In Criticism Of Trump’s Syria Strike

WASHINGTON ― After President Donald Trump launched a Tomahawk missile strike on a Syrian airfield, the debate among congressional Democrats was not over the actual merits of bombing Syrian airfields but instead about Trump’s decision process.

The reaction of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the most progressive member of the Senate Democratic caucus, was a case in point.

“It is very questionable whether it is legal” to bomb the Syrian air force without congressional involvement, Sanders told The Huffington Post.

Some of Sanders’ colleagues were less equivocal, including Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who said this “certainly is not a lawful act.” On the other end of the spectrum, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said it “seems like a reasonable exercise of presidential power.” 

But only a handful of Democrats questioned the evidence that Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons on civilians, the efficacy of using force to address that crime or the overall pattern of U.S. involvement in the Middle East.

The relatively measured criticism from top Democrats reflects a complex array of factors that have again put the party out of step with some grassroots members. In many cases, Democratic lawmakers simply agree with the need to punish Assad for using chemical weapons on the town of Khan Sheikhoun, even as they are uneasy about Trump’s leadership, the legality of his actions or the consequences of a strike.

That leaves Democrats in an interesting political position. For months they have taken every opportunity to lambaste Trump as a threat to the very fabric of the American republic. And from Trump’s travel ban to the Obamacare replacement debacle, the strategy has largely paid off. Now, with Trump launching the first direct attacks on the Syrian government, Democrats are more ambivalent.

Larry Korb, a senior fellow at the Democratic-aligned Center for American Progress, said he was “not surprised” that Democrats were sympathetic to the idea of a retaliatory airstrike. Many Democrats subscribe to a “responsibility to protect” doctrine that swift force is justified to prevent major humanitarian catastrophes, according to Korb.

Democrats should be more concerned, Korb said, with the prospect of this leading to more significant U.S. intervention in Syria.

“The real question is: What comes next?” said Korb, who supported the Obama administration’s decision not to heed calls to arm Syrian rebel groups more aggressively or remove Assad by force.

The fact that Democrats may have substantial reasons to embrace the idea of retaliating against Assad does not diminish the divide between many elected leaders and the ardent anti-interventionism of the party’s base.

“My expectations [of Democrats] were very low, and my expectations were met,” said Phyllis Bennis, a foreign policy expert at the left-wing Institute for Policy Studies. “Am I disappointed that we don’t have an antiwar party? Yes, I am.”

Bennis represents a wing of the peace camp that believes military force, whether legal or not, is justified only in very limited circumstances of self-defense. The last U.S. intervention she considers “legitimate” was World War II.

Bennis and other progressive critics argue that there should be a full international investigation of the use of chemical weapons to determine definitively whether Assad is responsible, which they admit is extremely likely.

“Having a full investigation is not some sort of delaying tactic. It is essential to getting real accountability,” said Stephen Miles, director of the progressive Win Without War coalition.

The residue of the decision not to bomb in 2013 created an environment where the next time it happened, a strike was going to be a foregone conclusion. Steven Simon, former National Security Council official

That view got a high-profile boost from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who urged caution in an interview with The Globe and Mail on Thursday. Trudeau called for a United Nations Security Council resolution that will enable the world “to determine first of all who was responsible for these attacks and how we will move forward.”

Even if Assad’s guilt is established, punishing him militarily would not be an effective response, according to Miles of Win Without War. He supports removing the weapons from Syria, negotiating a diplomatic end to the war and trying alleged war criminals.

“The ultimate accountability comes from international tribunals,” Miles said. “It is really gratifying to blow things up, but that doesn’t make it accountability.” 

But Win Without War, Credo, MoveOn.org and Peace Action, which jointly condemned Trump’s strike as a “reckless act of war,” have largely mirrored Democrats’ talking points about the strikes’ legality in their mobilization strategy.

A petition Credo is circulating that quickly picked up over 57,000 signatures calls on Democrats to “rein in Donald Trump’s unauthorized military strikes and hold immediate emergency deliberations on Trump’s illegal escalation of military engagement in Syria.”

Miles praised House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for demanding that Congress reconvene to debate a new authorization for use of military force ― and saved his criticism for Democratic lawmakers, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who voiced unreserved agreement with Trump’s decision.

“It’s not the first time we have seen Democrats in Congress who are way out of touch with where their base is,” he said.

Democrats have often chafed under Republican claims that they are weak on national security. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, critics saw signs of this insecurity in the ease with which Democratic lawmakers lined up behind then-President George W. Bush’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

But veteran Democratic foreign policy thinkers argue that Democrats’ ambivalence about President Trump’s missile strikes against Assad have more to do with former President Barack Obama and his foreign policy legacy than the ghosts of the Bush presidency.

Obama famously warned the Syrian government that use of chemical weapons would cross a “red line,” forcing the United States to consider military action against Assad’s regime.

When the U.S. concluded in August 2013 that Assad had used chemical weapons against civilians in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, Obama announced plans to launch missile strikes against Syrian military targets.

After the British Parliament rejected a bid for the United Kingdom to participate in the strike, Obama decided to seek congressional approval for the move. It soon became clear that the strike faced bipartisan opposition, and the White House pulled the request.

Despite public opposition to the retaliatory strike, Obama endured a lot of criticism, including from members of his own party, for not honoring his “red line” ultimatum, undermining U.S. credibility.

“The residue of the decision not to bomb in 2013 created an environment where the next time it happened a strike was going to be a foregone conclusion. There’d be no alternative,” said Steven Simon, who was senior director of Middle Eastern and North African affairs on Obama’s National Security Council in 2011 and 2012.

That leaves Democrats who want to avoid a replay of 2013 with limited grounds on which to criticize Trump, admitted Simon, now a history professor at Amherst College.

“They have sort of squared the circle by applauding the use of force but registering concerns about lack of congressional consultation,” Simon said.

Then there is the matter of deeper disagreement within the Democratic Party about Obama’s broader policy toward Syria. Obama rejected the suggestions of many advisers, including then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to intervene more forcefully to protect Syrian civilians and speed up Assad’s ouster. Those disagreements were evident in Clinton’s campaign promise to create a no-fly zone in Syria, as well as her calls Thursday for the U.S. to take out all of Assad’s airfields ― a more ambitious step than Trump ended up taking.

Clinton and other proponents of greater intervention in Syria argue that by declining to diminish Assad, the U.S. will never have the leverage needed to stop his atrocities and forge a diplomatic solution.

As a candidate, Trump ran against Clinton’s strategy, repeatedly insisting that Assad was preferable to the Syrian groups trying to overthrow him.

For Democrats hoping Trump would adopt a more Clintonian approach, it is tempting to view his strike on the Syrian airfield as the beginning of a recognition that Assad must face greater pressure, including the threat of force, to end the conflict.

But one such proponent of more robust action, Michael Breen, president of the center-left Truman Center and Truman National Security Project, warned against getting too optimistic. Breen is concerned about Trump’s haste and apparent lack of strategy. 

“A lot of people wanted to see the U.S. get more involved in Syria and wanted to see a response to the regime’s atrocities, but it is way too early to suddenly say Donald Trump is a different president than he was two days ago.”

Ryan Grim and Mike McAuliff contributed reporting.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2oSVXaw