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In November 2016, it blindsided them.
2016年11月，他們都傻眼了。
“He has relentlessly questioned the efficacy of force,” said the journalist Jeffrey Goldberg toward the end of Obama’s two terms,
"他無情地質疑武力的效力，"記者杰弗里-戈德堡在奧巴馬兩屆任期即將結束時說，
“but he has also become the most successful terrorist-hunter in the history of the presidency, one who will hand to his successor a set of tools an accomplished assassin would envy.”
"但他也成為總統歷史上最成功的恐怖分子獵手，他將把一套成功的刺客都會羨慕的工具交給他的繼任者。"
This outcome was scary, no matter how tightly controlled, humanely practised and judiciously governed – and that was before the true identity of Obama’s successor became known only six months after Goldberg wrote.
無論如何嚴格控制、人道地實踐和審慎地治理，結果都很可怕--此時奧巴馬的繼任者的真實身份還無人知曉，距離戈德堡寫完文章也僅過去了六個月。
It was not as though Obama could have turned a blind eye to terrorism.
似乎奧巴馬不可能對恐怖主義視而不見。
He was a politician whose career depended on protecting the American people.
他是一個政治家，他的職業生涯取決于保護美國人民。
But not only did Obama design a far bigger and more encompassing form of war than necessary, and not only did he undermine the US’s earlier commitments to a legal order consecrating peace to do so.
但是，奧巴馬不僅設計了一場遠比必要的規模更大、范圍更廣的戰爭，而且他還破壞了美國早先對神圣和平的法律秩序的承諾。
His policies helped create the conditions for a shocking and terrible finale.
他的政策有助于為一個令人震驚和可怕的結局創造條件。
No dove, Donald Trump nevertheless capitalised on the perception that mainstream politicians were committed to endless wars. And he won.
唐納德-特朗普并非愛好和平之人，但他利用了人們對主流政治家致力于無休止戰爭的看法。而且他贏了。
The arc of the moral universe ran through the humanisation of interminable conflict.
道德宇宙的弧線貫穿了無休止的沖突的人道化過程。
But it bent toward an ogre. More and more humane forms of fighting abroad had now brought disaster at home, too.
但它卻指向了一個食人魔。國外越來越人性化的戰斗形式現在也給國內帶來了災難。
Then Trump went on to repeat the very same pirouette from anti-war candidate to endless war president that Obama had performed.
然后，同奧巴馬一樣，特朗普搖身一變，從反戰的候選人變成了支持無休止戰爭的總統。
And now Joe Biden risks doing the same.
而現在，喬-拜登可能也在重復同樣的過程。
In March 2009, a landmark legal brief gave clear, jaw-dropping notice of how Obama’s wars would be conducted, formalising and globalising the “war on terror” in a way that Bush had never done officially.
2009年3月，一份具有里程碑意義的法律文件清楚地、令人瞠目結舌地說明了奧巴馬的戰爭將如何進行，以布什從未正式做過的方式將 "反恐戰爭 "正式化和全球化。
There would be no limitations in space or time on the conduct of counter-terrorism.
在進行反恐時，不會有任何空間或時間上的限制。
This would matter much more than Obama’s more widely remarked reforms: symbolically banning torture or fiddling with prisoner and trial rules.
這比奧巴馬更廣為人知的改革要重要得多：象征性地禁止酷刑或篡改囚犯和審判規則。
Two months later, Obama met in the Oval Office with a group of civil libertarians and human rights advocates.
兩個月后，奧巴馬在橢圓形辦公室會見了一群公民自由主義者和人權倡導者。
“No one questions your values,” began Anthony Romero, the American Civil Liberties Union head.
"沒有人質疑你的價值觀，"美國公民自由聯盟負責人安東尼-羅梅羅開始說道。
“But when your substantive policies are not substantively different from your predecessor’s, then the comparisons are fair.”
"但是，當你所實行的政策與你的前任沒有實質性區別時，那么這種比較就是公平的。"
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