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Obama had run as a kind of anti-war candidate in his fairytale 2008 campaign, and when it turned out that he was a hard-bitten pragmatist, in this and other areas, many of his supporters were surprised.
在2008年童話般的競選中，奧巴馬曾作為一名反戰候選人參選，但事實證明他在戰爭領域和其他方面是一個強硬的實用主義者，他的很多支持者都很意外。
Obama expanded the “war on terror” to an awesome extent, while making it sustainable for a domestic audience in a way his predecessor never did – in part because Obama understood the political uses of transforming American warfare in a humane direction.
奧巴馬將 "反恐戰爭 "擴大到令人敬畏的程度，同時以其前任從未有過的方式讓國內民眾能長期接受--部分原因是奧巴馬了解將美國的戰爭向人性化方向轉變所帶來的政治利好。
In just the first few months of 2009, after Obama took the oath of office, the initial metamorphosis of American war into humane form was achieved.
在2009年宣誓就職后的頭幾個月，奧巴馬就實現了美國戰爭向人性化的初步蛻變。
As the worst sins of the prior administration were disowned, Obama’s lawyers claimed authority to continue war indefinitely across space and time, devising formal legal frameworks for targeted killings.
隨著前任政府最嚴重的罪行被否定，奧巴馬的律師聲稱有權無限期地跨越空間和時間繼續戰爭，為定向清除制定了正式的法律框架。
The rise of the armed drone empire under Obama’s watch was merely the symbol of the extension and expansion of endless war.
在奧巴馬的眼皮底下，武裝無人機帝國的崛起僅象征著無休止的戰爭的延伸和擴張。
“Lawyerliness suffused the Obama administration,” observed Charlie Savage, the New York Times reporter who broke many explosive national security stories during the Obama years.
《紐約時報》記者查理-薩維奇（Charlie Savage）說："律師精神充斥著奧巴馬的政府。”他在奧巴馬時期爆出了許多爆炸性的國家安全新聞。
But that lawyerliness often served as an elaborate rationalisation process.
但這種律師精神往往是一種精心設計的合理化過程。
The president’s men and women, Savage has written, “were trying to fight al-Qaida while adhering to what they saw as the rule of law”.
薩維奇寫道，總統的爪牙們"試圖打擊基地組織，同時堅持他們認為的法治"。
Though what they saw as the rule of law meant little more than self-regulation, their commitment to humane standards of fighting war –
盡管他們眼中的法治只是意味著自我約束，但他們對人道的戰爭標準的承諾--
while by no means perfect in legal theory or military practice – had rhetorical power for some Americans, significant effects on the fighting itself, and helped produce endless war.
盡管在法律理論或軍事實踐中并不完美--對一些美國人來說具有言辭上的力量，對戰斗本身有重大影響，并有助于產生無休止的戰爭。
Obama continued a process begun in the later Bush years, but he more credibly advertised the country’s uprightness as steward of the least-brutal form of war possible.
奧巴馬繼續著布什執政后期開始的這一進程，但他更可信地宣傳了國家作為最不殘暴的戰爭的管理者的正直性。
And he transformed the “war on terror” itself.
他還改變了 "反恐戰爭 "本身。
Expansion and humanisation went together, branding Obama’s wars with an ominous trademark.
擴張和人性化同時進行，給奧巴馬的戰爭打上了一個不祥的烙印。
Beyond its other shortcomings, the transformation of American war incurred a gargantuan risk that its defenders and its opponents largely failed to notice before it was too late.
除了其他缺點之外，美國戰爭的轉型還帶來了巨大的風險，其捍衛者和反對者在為時已晚之前基本上沒有注意到這一點。
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