奥萨马本拉登

　　Osama bin Laden, the world’s most wanted terrorist, died on May 2nd, aged 54

　　奥萨马本拉登，世界头号通缉恐怖分子，于5月2日被击毙，终年54岁

　　May 5th 2011 | from the print edition

　　WHEN he gave interviews to foreign journalists, which he did rarely, Osama bin Laden had a way of looking down at his hands. This, and his soft, slightly raspy voice, and his gentle eyes—as well as the fact that he allowed no instantaneous translation—helped conceal what he was saying: that it was the duty of all Muslims to kill unbelievers, especially Americans, and that when he had seen the bodies of the infidels flying “like dust motes” on September 11th 2001, his heart had filled with joy.

　　他很少接受采访，但是每次接受外国记者采访时，他总以特有的方式俯视着自己的双手，此外，他声音柔和，略微有些刺耳，眼神安详，而且他从不允许马上翻译他的话。所有这一切掩盖了他所传递的信息：消灭异教徒，尤其是美国人，是所有穆斯林共同的责任；2001年9月11日，当他目睹这些异教徒的尸骨如“灰尘草芥般”四处横飞时，他的内心洋溢着喜悦。

　　His mien was that of the sage, not the killer. He seldom shed blood himself, though his treasured Kalashnikov, which he carried everywhere, was said to have been wrested in single combat from a Russian soldier in Afghanistan. As a rule he observed from afar as “his boys” blew up the American base at Khobar in Saudi Arabia, or the USS Cole in Yemen (he wrote a poem about that, the little dinghy bobbing on the waves) or the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, where in 1998 more than 200 died. Terrorism could be commendable or reprehensible, he smoothly agreed, but this was “blessed terror”, in defence of Islam. At first he denied any part in the 9/11 attacks, but at last pride got the better of him: yes, it was he who had guided his 19 brothers towards their “easy” targets.

　　他有着圣人般的风范，毫无杀手的暴戾之气。虽然不管到哪，他都随身带着自己所珍爱的卡拉希尼科夫式冲锋枪（据说是在阿富汗一次战斗中从一名俄罗斯士兵手里夺来的），但是他自己很少动手杀人。通常，当“他的孩子们”炸飞美国在沙特亚科巴的军事基地，或者炸沉美国科尔号军舰（他还曾经为此占诗一首：《那沉浮于浪花中的小船》），或者袭击美国在肯尼亚和坦桑尼亚的大使馆，他只是远远地观战。1998年这两起爆炸事件导致200多人死亡。若说恐怖主义可褒可贬，他是欣然同意的。但是他认为他所从事的是“神圣的恐怖主义”，旨在捍卫伊斯兰。起初，他否认自己参与911袭击事件，但是最后，他抑制不住内心的自豪感：是的，正是他，指使他19个弟兄“毫不费力”地袭击了他们的目标。

　　How he really saw himself was as a construction engineer. Construction had made the bin Laden family fortune, $5 billion at least, from which he had inherited $25m-30m. (There had been much more, perhaps $250m, and a yearly stipend of $7m, until his native Saudi Arabia expelled him in 1991 and froze his assets; but Allah provided for his servant, and some of his several dozen half-brothers and sisters slipped him money.) In the 1980s he bought excavators, dump trucks and bulldozers, sometimes driving them himself, digging trenches for the mujahideen to fight along in Afghanistan against the Soviet invaders, blasting tunnels in the mountains for their arms dumps and field hospitals, until in 1989 the unbeliever-enemy withdrew in shame and disgrace.

　　但是内心深处，他认为自己是一个建筑工程师。建筑业务为本拉登世家带来至少有50亿美元之巨的财富，而他继承了其中2500万到3000万美元的家产。（实际财产可能更多，估计有2.5亿美元，此外他每年还有700万美元的年金入账，直到1991年沙特将他驱逐出境并冻结其财产。但是，真主阿拉眷顾他，几十个同父异母的兄弟姐妹中，有些人也偷偷地给他提供资助。）80年代时，他买来挖土机，货车，和推土机，有时候自己亲自上阵，为圣战分子挖掘壕沟，帮助他们抗击入侵阿富汗的苏联人，同时他炸山头，挖隧道，连通武器库和战地医院。抗战一直持续到1989年，最后异教徒敌人无可奈何，悻悻地撤军走人。

　　He made roads in Sudan, too, when he was exiled there in the 1990s, including a new highway from Khartoum to Port Sudan. But he was mostly building his terror network, starting with the guesthouses and weapons he provided in Afghanistan through his maktab al-khidamat (“services office”), then creating al-Qaeda, “the base”. Much of this was done with Abdullah Azzam, his religious mentor; later, the terror-work was directed by Ayman al-Zawahiri and others; but it was he who first recorded, in hundreds of individual files, the details of each eager recruit, the date of arrival, what he had done for the cause. Keenly, he followed the media coverage of the atrocities he inspired, playing the world’s press like a violin when he chose. He built the brand and turned it into a global franchise; his face advertised it, even as he disappeared. If just two fighters held up a piece of cloth with “al-Qaeda” on it, he said proudly, American generals would run to the place in swarms.

　　90年代流亡于苏丹时，他也在那里修路，包括喀土穆和苏丹港之间的崭新高速公路。但是他更多地是建造自己的恐怖网络。首先，他从自己的旅馆和通过“服务办公室”向阿富汗输送的武器着手，然后组建了基地组织。这期间很大一部分工作是由他的宗教导师阿卜杜拉阿赞完成的，之后，这一恐怖网络由阿扎维和其他人来指挥，但是第一个以数百份文件的形式记录每位狂热的新基地分子的详细信息，包括加入的日期，为圣战事业做出何等功绩的人就是他。他密切地关注媒体对于他所引导的残暴恐怖事件的报道，同时像拨弄小提琴般随心所欲地玩弄世界的媒体。他一手打造了基地这个品牌，并做大做强，分支涵盖全球。即便他杳无踪影，他的脸庞依旧是最好的代言。他自豪的宣称，只需两个武装分子举起一块“基地组织”字样的破布，美国的将军们便会争先恐后地冲向那里。

　　His mind and approach were those of a businessman. The same caution that characterised his fugitive existence in Afghanistan and Pakistan—avoiding phones, the internet, even watches, anything that might be used to track him, slipping from cave to safe house to compound—featured in his investments, which were profitable and practical. No political ideology guided him, though he might lie for hours at night thinking, or read for most of the day. The polite, pious rich boy, who had left university without a degree, became neither an intellectual nor a visionary.

　　他思维行事有如商人一般。这种谨慎贯穿于他在阿富汗和巴基斯坦的流亡生涯：他不用电话，不上网，甚至连手表都不用，只要是有可能追踪到他的东西，他一概不用。同时，他流窜于山洞，隐匿住房，大院中。这种谨慎也体现在他的投资当中，他的投资，既可盈利，又能解难。虽然晚上他会好几个小时躺着思考问题，或者白天大部分时间也都在阅读，但是他没有任何政治形态意识。这个礼貌而虔诚的富家公子，文凭都没拿一个就离开了大学，最后既没成为知识分子，也没成为一个卓识之士。

　　Pure rage was all he needed, roused especially by the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the arrival of American troops in Saudi Arabia, on the holy ground of the two mosques in Mecca and Medina, in 1990. Hatred of America had tormented him for as long as he could remember. To drive out the infidels, to establish Palestine and destroy Israel, to eject the “heretics” who ruled in Saudi Arabia, to purify Islam itself with Wahhabist fundamentalism, were his ambitions. If they boiled down to a doctrine, it was a violent form of jihad, the holy duty of all Muslims, to make God’s word victorious; or just what he called “reciprocity”, an eye for an eye.

　　他需要的就是炽热的愤怒。1982年以色列入侵黎巴嫩，或者1990年美国军队进入沙特，驻扎在麦加和麦地那的两座被视为圣地的清真寺，这样的情景所燃起的炽热怒火最遂他的心意。自记事以来，对美国的仇恨一直煎熬着他。他踌躇满志，一心要驱逐异教徒，建立巴勒斯坦，消灭以色列，驱逐统治沙特的“异教徒”，并使伊斯兰得到瓦哈比教派原教旨主义的净化。 如果所有这些归结于某一个主义的话，那就是暴力形式的圣战运动，而圣战则是所有穆斯林的天职，旨在使真主阿拉的意愿获胜，或者就是他所说的“一报还一报”，即以牙还牙。

　　Facing the assassins

　　直面刺客

　　Somewhere, according to one of his five wives, was a man who loved sunflowers, and eating yogurt with honey; who took his children to the beach, and let them sleep under the stars; who enjoyed the BBC World Service and would go hunting with friends each Friday, sometimes mounted, like the Prophet, on a white horse. He liked the comparison. Yet the best thing in his life, he said, was that his jihads had destroyed the myth of all-conquering superpowers.

　　根据他五个妻子其中一位的说法，在他内心的某个角落里，栖居着一个这样的男人：爱向日葵，也爱喝加蜂蜜的酸奶，会带着孩子去沙滩，也会让他们酣睡于星空之下。爱BBC世界新闻，也会在每个周五和朋友结伴去打猎，有时候，他会像先知一般，蹬上一匹白马。他喜欢这一比较。但是他说，他一生最美好的事是看到自己的圣战组织颠覆了所向披靡的超级大国们的神话。

　　The price set on his head for more than a decade never bothered him, for Allah determined every breath in his body, and could ensure that the bombs dropped on his hideout at Tora Bora, or on his convoy through the mountains, never touched him. His martyr’s time would come when it came. The difference between pure Muslims and Americans, he said, was that Americans loved life, whereas Muslims loved death. Whether or not he resisted when the Crusaders’ special forces arrived, their bullets could only exalt him.

　　十多年来美军一直重金悬赏要取他的首级，他从不为此困扰。因为真主阿拉主宰着他的性命，即便藏匿于塔拉波拉或者在护卫簇拥下行走于群山中时，有炸弹落下，真主都能保证他毫发无伤。他的殉道之时会自然而然地到来。他称，纯粹的穆斯林和美国人之间的差别就在于美国人热爱生命，而穆斯林向往死亡。所以，当远征军的特种部队兵临城下，对他而言，抵抗与否，无关紧要，因为他们的子弹只会给他带来荣耀。