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United States
美國版塊
War from a distance Droning on
戰爭就在不遠處嗡嗡作響
The president is weighing how extensively to use drones. More civilian casualties abroad seem the likeliest outcome
美國總統正在權衡使用無人機的強度。在國外，最終結果就是造成更多的平民傷亡
DRONES HAVE BEEN a common sight in the skies above Afghanistan, but rarely had one trained its gaze on the capital, Kabul.
一直以來無人機在阿富汗上空很常見，但很少將目標對準首都喀布爾。
On August 29th, as America was hastily withdrawing its remaining soldiers and Afghan refugees through the city’s airport, a drone struck a white Toyota Corolla.
8月29日，美國匆忙從機場撤出剩余士兵和阿富汗難民時，一架無人機撞上了一輛白色的豐田卡羅拉。
After the strike, General Mark Milley, America’s top military official, called it a “righteous” strike, and the Pentagon claimed it had thwarted an imminent attack on American forces.
空襲結束后，美國最高軍事官員馬克·米利將軍稱這是一次“正義”的襲擊，五角大樓（美國國防部）稱其打擊了對美軍的迫切進攻。
In fact no terrorists had been killed and seven of the ten victims were children.
事實上，并沒有恐怖分子被擊斃，十名受害者中有七名是兒童。
President Joe Biden broke with his former boss, Barack Obama, in withdrawing troops from Afghanistan.
美國總統拜登在是否從阿富汗撤軍問題上與前上司巴拉克·奧巴馬決裂。
Like Mr Obama, he now faces a choice on how extensively to use drones to replace soldiers and pilots.
和奧巴馬一樣，他現在面臨著一個選擇，需要考慮多大程度地使用無人機來取代士兵和飛行員。
Mr Biden has pledged to conduct “over-the-horizon” counterterrorism operations, chiefly using armed drones, in Afghanistan, to pursue terrorists while reducing the toll of the war on terror on Americans.
拜登承諾將在阿富汗開展以武裝無人機為主的“超視距”反恐行動，以追捕恐怖分子，同時減少美國在反恐戰爭中的傷亡。
Yet as the experience of Mr Obama and his successor, Donald Trump, suggests, drone strikes have hardly proved a strategic success.
然而，奧巴馬和他的繼任者唐納德·特朗普的經歷已經表明，無人機襲擊并不是一種戰略上的成功。
As Samuel Moyn of Yale University argues in his recently published book “Humane,” such attempts to make the war less lethal may have made it harder to end.
正如耶魯大學的塞繆爾·莫恩（Samuel Moyn）在他最近出版的書“人道”（Humane）中指出的那樣，這種試圖降低戰爭殺傷力的嘗試可能會讓戰爭更難結束。
Mr Biden’s strategy appears to be just the formula for a more sustainable, but no less brutal, war on terror.
拜登的戰略似乎是一場更可持續、但同樣殘酷的反恐戰爭的方式。
As troop casualties mounted and the public opinion turned under President George W. Bush, drones emerged as a means of long-distance fighting.
在喬治·布什總統執政期間，由于部隊傷亡人數的增加和公眾輿論的轉變，無人機成為了一種遠程戰斗手段。
First deployed just weeks after September 11th, it was Mr Obama who greatly expanded their use.
9·11事件發生后幾周內，奧巴馬首次部署了無人機并極大地擴大了使用范圍。
The rationale was clear. America would no longer rely on vulnerable ground forces.
原因很簡單，美國將不再依賴脆弱的地面部隊。
Drones could strike as far afield as Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia—places where America was not, officially, at war.
無人機可以攻擊遠至巴基斯坦、利比亞、也門和索馬里地區，而在這些地方美國還并沒有官方開戰。
Killing terrorists, rather than seizing them in battle, could also solve the Guantánamo problem. “If no one was captured, no one could be mistreated,” writes Mr Moyn.
殺死恐怖分子，而不是在戰爭中抓獲他們，也可以解決古巴的關塔那摩問題。莫恩寫道：“如果沒有人被捕，就不會有人受到虐待。”
Keen to withdraw troops from Iraq and, eventually, Afghanistan, Mr Obama directed more drone strikes in his first year than Mr Bush had in his entire presidency.
奧巴馬堅持從伊拉克撤軍，最終也成功從阿富汗撤軍，他在上任第一年指揮的無人機襲擊比布什在整個總統任期內指揮的還要多。
A brief prepared in March of 2009 by the Department of Justice laid out the administration’s contorted legal justification.
2009年3月，美國司法部準備了一份簡報，闡述了政府歪曲的辯解。
It declared that the war on terror operated on a global battlefields. Nor would it be limited to al-Qaeda and “associated forces”: even those with tenuous ties like al-Shabab in Somalia, were fair game.
簡報宣稱，全球戰場上都在進行反恐戰爭。這并不局限于基地組織和“相關勢力”：即使對于那些與索馬里青年黨有著微妙聯系的人也都是公平的。
Mr Moyn argues this gave permission to strike targets that did not pose an “imminent” threat, as international law demands.
莫恩辯稱，這讓他們得以打擊那些不構成“立即”威脅的目標，正如國際法所要求的那樣。
At the height of Mr Obama’s drone campaign in 2010, America’s armed forces launched 128 strikes in Pakistan alone.
在奧巴馬2010年無人機行動的巔峰時期，美國武裝部隊僅在巴基斯坦就發動了128次空襲。
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