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Give Peace a Chance
給和平一個機會
By James Stavridis
文/詹姆斯·斯塔夫里迪斯
As we take the first major, halting steps toward a peace agreement in Afghanistan,
阿富汗和平協議首次遭遇重大擱淺，
all I can remember is how we got there in the first place.
此時此刻，我的腦海里只有我們剛進軍阿富汗時的情景。
On 9/11, I was a newly promoted one-star admiral, working on the Navy staff in the Pentagon.
9/11那天，剛晉升一星海軍上將的我正在五角大樓的海軍參謀部工作。
My office was in the new section of the building, and I literally watched the airplane hit the Pentagon.
我的辦公室位于園區新建的辦公樓里，所以我親眼見證了襲擊五角大樓的飛機撞向大樓的那一幕。
As I stumbled out of the burning building onto the grassy field below, the irony of the moment struck me:
我跌跌撞撞地走出著火的大樓來到樓下的草坪上時，那一刻的諷刺意味突然引入了我的腦海：
here I was, in the safest building on earth, guarded by the strongest military in history, in the capital of the richest country in the world.
我這可是在位于世界上最富有的國家的首都，有歷史上最強大的軍隊把守，堪稱地球上最安全的建筑的五角大樓啊。
If the Pentagon wasn’t safe, what was?
如果五角大樓都不安全了，那還有哪里安全呢？
We all knew everything would change, especially for those of us in the U.S. military.
大家都知道，一切都會改變，對我們這些身在美國軍隊里的人來說就更是如此了。
I was wrenched out of my comfortable assignment as a strategic budget officer and selected to lead “Deep Blue,”
他們將我從原來工作內容相對輕松的戰略預算官的位置趕了下來，選我去領導“深藍”那個項目，
a hastily created think tank charged with charting a new course for the Navy in what would become known as the war on terror.
這是一個倉促組建起來的智囊團，專門負責為海軍規劃一條新的道路，而這條道路就是后來的反恐戰爭。
We didn’t really know what that meant, nor did we appreciate all that would unfold in so many places around the world,
當時，我們并不知道這個項目意味著什么，也沒有意識到接下來世界各地會有那么多地方陷入慘劇，
and how many would die as a result of our retaliation.
會有那么多人被我們的報復奪走生命。
But we did know that the plot that killed 3,000 Americans had begun in Afghanistan,
但殺害了3000名美國人的那場陰謀是從阿富汗開始的這一點我們是知道的，
and very quickly the focus of the U.S. military became going there, finding al-Qaeda and destroying them.
很快，美軍的重點就變成了到阿富汗去，找到基地組織然后摧毀他們。
The Taliban—who had harbored them— were at the time a small obstacle that we quickly overcame.
當時的塔利班——是他們在給基地組織撐腰——在我們眼里不過就是一群螞蚱，很快就被我們攻克了。
As tens of thousands of U.S. troops deployed to a strange, foreboding nation whose geography seemed to resemble the surface of the moon,
就在數以萬計的美軍一批接一批地部署到阿富汗這個地貌形似月球表面，給人感覺即陌生又不祥的國家的時候，
we could never have predicted we were embarking on the longest war in U.S. history.
我們絲毫沒有預料到，我們正在籌備的是美國歷史上最漫長的一次戰爭。
Over nearly two decades, hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops rotated through Afghanistan, generally on one-year assignments.
之后的近20年時間里，數十萬美軍在阿富汗輪流執行任務，通常以一年為單位。
At the conflict’s peak in 2013, over 150,000 U.S. and allied troops from over 50 nations were deployed there.
2013年阿富汗沖突最緊張的時候，部署在阿富汗境內的美軍及來自50多個盟國的友軍人數多達15萬以上。
Many became casualties, including nearly 2,500 killed and over 20,000 wounded.
不少人最后都是非死即傷，死亡人數近2500人，受傷人數更是多達2萬余人。
During my four years commanding the NATO mission Enduring Freedom there,
在指揮代號“永續自由”這一北約行動的四年里，
I wrote 1,700 letters of condolence to grieving families, about a third of them Europeans.
我寫了1700封致那些悲痛欲絕的軍屬家庭的慰問信，其中有大約1/3的家庭都是歐洲人。
It was a hard time for the U.S. military,
那段時間對美軍而言十分艱難，
which was caught in a classic counterinsurgency battle against an implacable and determined foe.
因為他們陷入的是一場典型的鎮壓叛亂之戰，他們的對手則是一個不愿和解且不達目的誓不罷休的敵人。
譯文由可可原創，僅供學習交流使用，未經許可請勿轉載。
