莱克星顿

　　The politics of Guantanamo

　　关塔那摩监狱政治

　　The idea of providing a home to terror suspects sparks a revealing fuss in Kansas

　　堪萨斯热议为恐怖活动嫌疑人安家，发人深省。

　　IF AN “irresponsible” Barack Obama moves terrorists from Guantanamo Bay to a military prison in Kansas, he would be painting a target on every hospital and school in the area. That is the view of the state's senior senator, Pat Roberts. “Not on my watch,” Mr Roberts assured supporters huddled in a rain-lashed shopping mall in Wichita on October 13th, to much applause and nodding of heads. Mr Roberts, a 78-year-old Republican, promises to halt all Senate business, if need be, to stop the president from emptying the prison camp in Cuba and sending its remaining detainees to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, home to America's only maximum-security military prison.

　　如果“不负责任”的奥巴马把恐怖分子从关塔那摩湾转移到堪萨斯的军事监狱，他将会使这一地区每一所医院和学校都成为(恐怖袭击的)活靶子。这是该州参议员帕特 罗伯特持有的观点。10月13号，面对不顾滂沱大雨，挤满购物中心的支持者，罗伯特议员保证：“起码我不会让这在我的眼皮底下发生。”他的言论随之赢来了诸多掌声和赞同。这位78岁的共和党承诺，如有必要，他会中止一切参议院事务，来阻止奥巴马清空古巴的关塔那摩湾监狱，把其中剩余的犯人转移到堪萨斯州利文沃斯堡—美国安全级别最高的监狱所在地。

　　关塔那摩监狱政治.jpg

　　Pedants might object that Leavenworth has not actually been asked to take any detainees—though the Kansas prison was one of several sites considered in 2009, after Mr Obama took office declaring that he would close Guantanamo in a matter of months. No matter. A recent press report—denied, a bit half-heartedly, by the White House—suggested that officials are pondering how the president might use executive powers to close Guantanamo before his term ends, if Congress maintains its current ban on moving detainees to the mainland. Americans have been put in a jumpy mood by grim global headlines, lending a “safety-first” edge to mid-term congressional elections on November 4th.

　　过分纠结于细节的人也许会说，其实Leavenworth并没被真正选定，只是在2009年，奥巴马就任，宣布会在几个月内关闭关塔那摩湾监狱时，被列为几个考虑地点之一。但这已不再重要。近期有媒体报道暗示，官员们正在考虑，如果国会继续禁止把犯人转移回美国大陆，总统将怎样利用其行政权，在任期结束之前关闭关塔那摩。但这一报道被白宫兴趣缺缺地否认了。如今，受到全球严峻新闻形势的影响，美国人草木皆兵，对即将于11月4日举行的中期选举，也一概采用“稳健第一”的态度。

　　More to the point, Mr Roberts is facing a tough re-election fight, though Kansas is a solidly conservative prairie state. After 34 years in Congress he finds himself in a tight spot, squeezed between local Tea Party purists (who think he has forgotten his Kansas roots) and old-school moderate Republicans (tempted by an independent candidate, Greg Orman, who says both parties have forgotten how to compromise).

　　更重要的是，尽管堪萨斯州是一个保守的草原州，罗伯特仍面临严峻的连任形势。34年的国会生涯让罗伯特夹在当地正宗茶党和老派稳健共和党之间左右为难，一边觉得罗伯特忘记了自己在堪萨斯的根，另一边受到独立候选人格雷格 奥曼（Greg Orman）影响，认为两党都忘记了该怎样妥协。

　　All in all, Mr Roberts has every incentive to talk up fights with the White House. Asked to guess at the president's motives, he frowns. Mr Obama thinks that closing Guantanamo “will make things better in the Muslim world”, he ventures. Perhaps, he goes on, the president thinks that Islamic State fighters will say: “Oh, that's wonderful.”

　　总之，罗伯特与白宫开战的理由再充分不过了。当被要求揣测总统意图时，罗伯特皱了皱眉，推测说，也许奥巴马认为关闭关塔那摩能“让穆斯林世界改观”，他还说，也许总统还盼着伊斯兰国（IS）战士说：“太好了。”

　　Other Republicans, led by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, have accused the president of being “eager” to bring terrorists into the country, and have pressed Democrats to denounce him (Mr Orman, for his part, calls Mr Obama “absolutely wrong” to want Guantanamo detainees on American soil). Critics are on firm political ground: since 2009 polls have shown two-thirds of Americans opposed to closing Guantanamo and moving detainees to the mainland.

　　以众议院发言人约翰 博纳为首的其他共和党人则纷纷指责，总统对把恐怖分子转移到美国的想法过于“热切”，并督促民主党也对其进行谴责，另一方面，奥曼指出，奥巴马要把关押在关塔那摩的犯人转移回美国国土的念头是“绝对错误”的。舆论的政治立场也很坚定，自2009年以来，有2/3的选民都反对关闭关塔那摩，并将犯人转移回美国。

　　Understandably, Republican leaders want the 2014 election to be a referendum on Mr Obama, and what they see as his weak, naive handling of a world on fire. Ask Kansans why they do not want to receive any of the 149 remaining Guantanamo detainees, and echoes of that complaint come up. “Sure, we have super-max prisons, they wouldn't escape,” says a retired oil-worker in Wichita, Ken Jarvis. But once in America they would be granted lawyers sympathetic to their cause, he predicts, adding darkly: “There's probably Muslim attorneys.” Before long, he thinks, dangerous men would be free to walk the streets.

　　因此，共和党想把2014年大选变为对奥巴马的全民公投，来评判他的功过和对硝烟弥漫世界软弱而天真的处理应对方式。当问到堪萨斯州人，他们为什么不愿意接收现关押在关塔那摩的149名犯人，他们的回应充满了抱怨。威奇塔退休石油工人肯恩 贾维斯表示：“当然，我们有安全级别最高的监狱，他们不会越狱。”贾维斯预测，一旦他们踏上美国领土，就会有同情他们的律师，他消极地说：“也许还会有穆斯林律师。”用不了多久，这些危险的人就能大摇大摆地走上街了。

　　When Leavenworth last thought it might be receiving Guantanamo detainees, five years ago, 95% of locals were opposed, says the mayor, Mark Preisinger. Not because Leavenworth, a sturdy city of red brick and grey stone beside the Missouri river, is prone to hysteria. It has been a prison town since the 19th century. Between the army, the federal government, the state of Kansas and a private corrections corporation, five large prisons brood in and around the city. It is a military town, home to elite staff colleges for high-flying officers from America and abroad. The city high school sends between 20 and 30 students a year into the armed forces. Still, residents feel in “lockstep” that the place to keep the detainees is Guantanamo, says the mayor.

　　Leavenworth市长马克 潘辛格（Mark Preisinger）说，Leavenworth居民上一次考虑要不要接收关塔那摩监狱中的犯人还是五年前，当时，95%的居民都表示反对。这并不是因为这一个密西西比河畔，红砖灰石的坚固城市害怕歇斯底里（的犯罪）。从19世纪开始，这里就一直是一个监狱城镇。在军队、联邦政府、堪萨斯州和一家私人教化中心之间，这座城市及其周围坐落了五所大型监狱。这也是一个军事城镇，坐落着多所供国内外高级军官进修的精英大学。每年，当地的高中都会有20到30名学生进入军队。但市长表示，即使如此，当地居民也仍一致认为，关押（恐怖活动）犯人的地方，就应该是关塔那摩。

　　That prison camp—built in an American naval base maintained by treaty on Cuba's eastern tip—is called a legal limbo, scoffs a local Republican state senator, Steve Fitzgerald. Well, good. “Why shouldn't they just rot?” he asks, calling many detainees unfit to enter the criminal-justice system and undeserving of the status of prisoners-of-war.

　　当地一名共和党参议员史蒂夫 菲茨杰拉德嘲笑说，关塔那摩位于美国的海军基地，而该基地又是按照针对古巴东端的条约下设立的，因此它是合法的。他问：“那他们怎么不干脆就烂在里面？”他认为，许多犯人都不符合进入刑事犯罪系统的条件，也不配得到战犯的待遇。

　　If we cannot be loved, let us be feared

　　爹不疼娘不爱，那起码让我们心生恐惧

　　During these and other Kansan conversations, it becomes clear that the politics of Guantanamo involves not just a verdict on Mr Obama. In this security-tinged election, America is also having a debate about the legacy of George W. Bush. Go back to the 2008 election, and Mr Obama spoke like a man with a sweeping mandate to reverse the priorities of the Bush era. Where his predecessor had held international laws cheap, Team Obama would restore America's global standing (and closing Guantanamo would symbolise that fresh start). America is war-weary, Mr Obama said repeatedly: time for some nation-building at home, and drawing a line under endless war.

　　在堪萨斯州内的所有讨论中，很明显，关塔那摩湾监狱政治不仅仅关乎对奥巴马的裁决。在这场带有安全色彩的选举中，美国还就乔治 布什的遗留政治展开了讨论。回顾2008年大选，奥巴马字句之间，仿佛拥有横扫一切的权威，能够改变布什时代的要务。前辈轻视国际秩序，奥巴马团队则力图恢复美国的国际地位，而关闭关塔那摩能够标志着这一崭新的开始。奥巴马曾反复说，美国厌倦了战争，是时候进行国内建设，与无穷无尽的战争划清界限了。

　　The evidence is mounting that Mr Obama misread his mandate. In such conservative places as Leavenworth, people are not sure America is war-weary. “The nation hasn't been at war, it's been the military,” says Eric Hollister, a retired lieutenant-colonel and veteran of Iraq who instructs cadets at the high school. The past 13 years have hardly been like the second world war, he adds, when America dug Victory Gardens to supplement rations.

　　越来越多的证据显示，奥巴马误解了自己的权限。在像Leavenworth这样保守的地方中，人们并不能肯定美国是否真正厌倦了战争。退役中校、伊拉克战争老兵、现在高中担任教导员的埃里克 霍利斯特说：“打仗的不是美国，是军队。”他还补充道，过去13年也不像第二次世界大战，美国不再需要挖掘战时花园来补充供给。

　　The country is certainly fed up with calls to fix the world: Democrats and Republicans alike say it is not America's job to take the lead in solving international problems. But far from thanking Mr Obama for delivering the cautious, diffident foreign policy that such polls would seem to demand, voters are turning on him. The Guantanamo saga helps to explain this puzzle. Americans do not want endless war. But right now, many put feeling safe above the pursuit of peace.

　　美国的确厌倦了应召拯救世界，对此，民主共和两党都说，美国没有义务来带头解决国际问题。但选民并没有感谢奥巴马让美国变得更谨慎，相反，缺乏自信的外交政策让选民开始与奥巴马反目。而关塔那摩闹剧能够帮助解决这一谜团。美国人不想要无休无止的战争，但现在，许多人比起追求和平，更关心安全感。