2021年经济学人 美国版块--是袭击还是反恐（1）

War from a distance Droning on

战争就在不远处嗡嗡作响

The president is weighing how extensively to use drones. More civilian¹ casualties abroad seem the likeliest outcome

美国总统正在权衡使用无人机的强度。在国外，最终结果就是造成更多的平民伤亡

DRONES HAVE BEEN a common sight in the skies above Afghanistan, but rarely had one trained its gaze on the capital, Kabul.

无人机一直是阿富汗上空常见的景象，但很少将目光对准首都喀布尔。

On August 29th, as America was hastily withdrawing its remaining soldiers and Afghan refugees through the city’s airport, a drone struck a white Toyota Corolla.

8月29日，美国匆忙从机场撤出剩余士兵和阿富汗难民时，一架无人机撞上了一辆白色的丰田卡罗拉。

After the strike, General Mark Milley, America’s top military official, called it a “righteous” strike, and the Pentagon claimed it had thwarted² an imminent³ attack on American forces.

空袭结束后，美国最高军事官员马克·米利将军称这是一次“正义”的袭击，五角大楼（美国国防部）称其打击了对美军的迫切进攻。

In fact no terrorists had been killed and seven of the ten victims were children.

事实上，并没有恐怖分子被击毙，十名受害者中有七名是儿童。

President Joe Biden broke with his former boss, Barack Obama, in withdrawing troops from Afghanistan.

美国总统拜登在是否从阿富汗撤军问题上与前上司巴拉克·奥巴马决裂。

Like Mr Obama, he now faces a choice on how extensively to use drones to replace soldiers and pilots.

和奥巴马一样，他现在面临着一个选择，需要考虑多大程度地使用无人机来取代士兵和飞行员。

Mr Biden has pledged to conduct “over-the-horizon” counterterrorism operations, chiefly using armed drones, in Afghanistan, to pursue terrorists while reducing the toll⁴ of the war on terror on Americans.

拜登承诺将在阿富汗开展以武装无人机为主的“超视距”反恐行动，以追捕恐怖分子，同时减少美国在反恐战争中的伤亡。

Yet as the experience of Mr Obama and his successor, Donald Trump⁵, suggests, drone strikes have hardly proved a strategic success.

然而，奥巴马和他的继任者唐纳德·特朗普的经历已经表明，无人机袭击并不是一种战略上的成功。

As Samuel Moyn of Yale University argues in his recently published book “Humane,” such attempts to make the war less lethal⁶ may have made it harder to end.

正如耶鲁大学的塞缪尔·莫恩(Samuel Moyn)在他最近出版的书“人道”(Humane)中指出的那样，这种试图降低战争杀伤力的尝试可能会让战争更难结束。

Mr Biden’s strategy appears to be just the formula for a more sustainable, but no less brutal⁷, war on terror.

拜登的战略似乎是一场更可持续、但同样残酷的反恐战争的配方。

As troop casualties mounted and the public opinion turned under President George W. Bush, drones emerged as a means of long-distance fighting.

在乔治·布什总统执政期间，由于部队伤亡人数的增加和公众舆论的转变，无人机成为了一种远程战斗手段。

First deployed⁸ just weeks after September 11th, it was Mr Obama who greatly expanded their use. The rationale was clear. America would no longer rely on vulnerable ground forces.

9·11事件发生后几周内，奥巴马首次部署了无人机并极大地扩大了使用范围。原因很简单，美国将不再依赖脆弱的地面部队。

Drones could strike as far afield as Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia—places where America was not, officially, at war.

无人机可以攻击远至巴基斯坦、利比亚、也门和索马里地区，而在这些地方美国还并没有官方开战。

Killing⁹ terrorists, rather than seizing them in battle, could also solve the Guantánamo problem. “If no one was captured, no one could be mistreated,” writes Mr Moyn.

杀死恐怖分子，而不是在战争中抓获他们，也可以解决古巴的关塔那摩问题。莫恩写道：“如果没有人被捕，就不会有人受到虐待。”

Keen to withdraw troops from Iraq and, eventually, Afghanistan, Mr Obama directed more drone strikes in his first year than Mr Bush had in his entire presidency¹⁰.

奥巴马坚持从伊拉克撤军，并最终成功撤军，他在上任第一年指挥的无人机袭击比布什在整个总统任期内指挥的还要多。

A brief prepared in March of 2009 by the Department of Justice laid out the administration’s contorted legal justification¹¹.

2009年3月，美国司法部准备了一份简报，阐述了政府歪曲的辩解。

It declared that the war on terror operated on a global battlefield. Nor would it be limited to al-Qaeda and “associated forces”: even those with tenuous¹² ties like al-Shabab in Somalia, were fair game.

它宣称反恐战争是在全球战场上进行的。这并不局限于基地组织和“相关势力”：即使对于那些与索马里青年党有着微妙联系的人也都是公平的。

Mr Moyn argues this gave permission to strike targets that did not pose an “imminent” threat, as international law demands.

莫恩辩称，这让他们得以打击那些不构成“迫在眉睫”威胁的目标，正如国际法所要求的那样。

At the height of Mr Obama’s drone campaign in 2010, America’s armed forces launched 128 strikes in Pakistan alone.

在奥巴马2010年无人机行动的巅峰时期，美国武装部队仅在巴基斯坦就发动了128次空袭。

1 civilian   

adj.平民的，民用的，民众的

参考例句：

• There is no reliable information about civilian casualties.关于平民的伤亡还没有确凿的信息。
• He resigned his commission to take up a civilian job.他辞去军职而从事平民工作。

2 thwarted   

阻挠( thwart的过去式和过去分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过

参考例句：

• The guards thwarted his attempt to escape from prison. 警卫阻扰了他越狱的企图。
• Our plans for a picnic were thwarted by the rain. 我们的野餐计划因雨受挫。

3 imminent   

adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的

参考例句：

• The black clounds show that a storm is imminent.乌云预示暴风雨即将来临。
• The country is in imminent danger.国难当头。

4 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。

5 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

6 lethal   

adj.致死的；毁灭性的

参考例句：

• A hammer can be a lethal weapon.铁锤可以是致命的武器。
• She took a lethal amount of poison and died.她服了致命剂量的毒药死了。

7 brutal   

adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的

参考例句：

• She has to face the brutal reality.她不得不去面对冷酷的现实。
• They're brutal people behind their civilised veneer.他们表面上温文有礼，骨子里却是野蛮残忍。

8 deployed   

（尤指军事行动）使展开( deploy的过去式和过去分词 )； 施展； 部署； 有效地利用

参考例句：

• Tanks have been deployed all along the front line. 沿整个前线已部署了坦克。
• The artillery was deployed to bear on the fort. 火炮是对着那个碉堡部署的。

9 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

10 presidency   

n.总统(校长，总经理)的职位(任期)

参考例句：

• Roosevelt was elected four times to the presidency of the United States.罗斯福连续当选四届美国总统。
• Two candidates are emerging as contestants for the presidency.两位候选人最终成为总统职位竞争者。

11 justification   

n.正当的理由；辩解的理由

参考例句：

• There's no justification for dividing the company into smaller units. 没有理由把公司划分成小单位。
• In the young there is a justification for this feeling. 在年轻人中有这种感觉是有理由的。

12 tenuous   

adj.细薄的，稀薄的，空洞的

参考例句：

• He has a rather tenuous grasp of reality.他对现实认识很肤浅。
• The air ten miles above the earth is very tenuous.距离地面十公里的空气十分稀薄。