VOA标准英语2008年-Obama Appeals for Joint Fight Against Terror in

U.S. Democratic Party presidential hopeful Barack Obama delivered a much awaited speech in Berlin Thursday, urging Europe to stand by the United States in bringing stability to Afghanistan and tackling other threats to global peace. Obama spoke¹ at the Victory Column before tens of thousands of enthusiastic spectators. Tendai Maphosa has more in this report for VOA from London.

They started gathering² hours before Barack Obama was scheduled to speak. By the time he showed up at Berlin's Victory Column, Tiergaten Park was packed.

"Thank you, Thank you, Thank you so much," Obama said.

The White House hopeful said, despite the historic ties Europe and the U.S. had drifted apart and forgotten what he described as a shared destiny. He called on the Europeans to play a bigger role in the fight against terrorism and take a greater share of responsibility for peace and stability in Afghanistan.

"I recognize the enormous difficulties in Afghanistan but my country and yours have a stake in seeing that NATO's first mission beyond Europe's borders is a success, for the people of Afghanistan and for our shared security the work must be done," Senator Obama said. "America can't do this alone; the Afghan people need our troops and your troops our support and your support to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaida, to develop the economy and to help them rebuild their nation. We have too much at stake to turn back now."

Obama mentioned Iraq only briefly³, saying as much as the world was divided over the war it should unite in helping⁴ to rebuild the country.

"Despite past differences this is the moment when the world must support the millions of Iraqis who seek to rebuild their lives even as we pass responsibility to the Iraqi government and finally bring this war to a close," he said.

He spoke at length about America's historic ties to Europe, invoking⁵ the Berlin airlift launched by the allies after the former Soviet⁶ Union isolated⁷ the western part of the city.

"Ours is a partnership⁸ that truly began 60 years ago this summer on the day when the first American plane touched down at Templehoff [Airport]," said Obama. "On that day much of this continent still lay in ruins, the rubble⁹ of this city had yet to be built into a wall, the Soviet shadow had swept across eastern Europe while in the West America, Britain and France took stock of their losses."

Obama also called on the United States and Europe to send a message to Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

1 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

2 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

3 briefly   

adv.简单地，简短地

参考例句：

• I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
• He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。

4 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

5 invoking   

v.援引( invoke的现在分词 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求

参考例句：

• You can customise the behavior of the Asynchronous Server and hence re-brand it by defining your own command set for invoking services. 通过定义自己调用服务的命令集，您可以定制自定义异步服务器的行为，通过为调用服务定义自己的命令集从而对它重新标记。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• You can customize the behavior of the Asynchronous Server and hence re-brand it by defining your own command set for invoking services. 通过定义自己调用服务的命令集，您可以定制自定义异步服务器的行为，通过为调用服务定义自己的命令集从而对它重新标记。 来自辞典例句

6 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

7 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

8 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。

9 rubble   

n.（一堆）碎石，瓦砾

参考例句：

• After the earthquake,it took months to clean up the rubble.地震后，花了数月才清理完瓦砾。
• After the war many cities were full of rubble.战后许多城市到处可见颓垣残壁。