PBS高端访谈:美国军队在打击恐怖主义上将拥有更多空间

 　　JUDY WOODRUFF: During the presidential campaign, candidate Trump¹ promised to give the U.S. military more freedom to attack terrorist targets around the world.

　　Yesterday, it was announced that President Trump made good on that promise.

　　Hari Sreenivasan has the story.

　　HARI SREENIVASAN: Among the countries where the U.S. is fighting terrorism are Iraq, Yemen and Somalia. Now the president has approved the Pentagon's plan to beef up its targeting of Al-Shabaab in Somalia, giving the military greater latitude² to decide when and where to strike.

　　For more on all of this, we turn to Sarah Sewall. She served as undersecretary of state for civilian³ security, democracy and human rights during the Obama administration. She's written extensively about military operations and civilian casualties. She's now at Johns Hopkins University.

　　Ms. Sewall, I want to first ask — just walk us through what the changes are that the Pentagon just announced.

　　SARAH SEWALL, Former State Department Official: Well, essentially⁴, President Obama had created two categories for thinking about the use of force in the context of the war on terror.

　　One was more like targeted killing⁵ with more restricted types of targets that you could both choose and were forced to identify, and it controlled the effects of those uses of force more closely. The other is more like what Americans would understand as war, general hostilities⁶.

　　And what has happened is, the president — the current president has now moved, according to reports, moved the Somalia engagement of U.S. forces from the category of more targeted uses of force to that of general hostilities.

　　美国军队在打击恐怖主义上将拥有更多空间

　　HARI SREENIVASAN: It says that the new rules says it's OK to kill civilians⁷ if necessary and proportionate.

　　What does that mean? In the past, it used to be if they were threatening Americans. That doesn't seem the case now.

　　SARAH SEWALL: Sure.

　　That's what I mean by the kinds of targets that are chosen. The former category required that only those who were a direct threat to Americans could be targeted. Now they can be targeted if they're members of an organization that's an associated force with the perpetrators of 9/11.

　　It has huge impacts for civilian casualties, because the former standard of using the use of targeting according to a near certainty of not killing civilians has now been relaxed.

　　But, of course, the laws of war still apply, so uses of force still have to be proportional and they still have to be discriminate⁸.

　　HARI SREENIVASAN: The military has complained for quite some time, even through the Obama administration, that there was too much red tape between when they actually found the target and the amount of hoops⁹ that they had to jump through to try to take action on it.

　　SARAH SEWALL: That's right, Hari.

　　I think it is fair to say that the U.S. military, like most militaries, will always seek greater latitude for the use of force. It's the role of civilian authorities to make sure that America's broader strategic interests are balanced against tactical possibilities for gain.

　　And here is where I think President Obama's decision to make sure that the uses of force didn't have blowback, either by virtue¹⁰ of killing civilians unnecessarily, or by feeding into the ISIS narrative¹¹ that the U.S. was seeking to fight a war against Islam, or by allowing a slippery slope for the use of military force, which is, I think, a legitimate¹² concern that we should be asking about in the context of moving toward general hostilities for engagement in Somalia.

　　HARI SREENIVASAN: The U.S. military is also going to say, listen, we go out of our way more than anybody else to try to minimize civilian casualties, so what's the harm in giving them a little bit more leeway if they are going to follow the same protocols¹³?

　　SARAH SEWALL: Well, they are not going to follow the same protocols. The protocols are very different, Hari.

　　And, yes, the U.S. military is better than almost anyone else at avoiding civilian harm. But we need to only look at the use of airstrikes in Mosul in Iraq to see that there are huge potentials for backlash that come when you relax those protocols. And we can do extremely well, we have done extremely well at different periods in our history.

　　We know how to be discriminating¹⁴ in the use of airpower. And part of what President Obama's original intent was to keep those standards high as much as possible. So, we should be asking tough questions when the standards are relaxed.

　　HARI SREENIVASAN: Does the use of or the ability to use more force make our troops any safer?

　　SARAH SEWALL: Well, I did a study in Afghanistan in 2010, and there was no correlation¹⁵ between the kinds of standards that protected civilians and the protection that our forces enjoyed.

　　What changed was the way we went about pursuing our objectives. Sometimes, we took more time. Sometimes, we took an indirect route. But the U.S. military can do a phenomenal job at avoiding civilian harm.

　　But it does require civilian leadership to emphasize that as a matter of a priority.

　　HARI SREENIVASAN: All right, Sarah Sewall with Johns Hopkins, thanks so much.

　　SARAH SEWALL: Thank you.

1 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

2 latitude   

n.纬度，行动或言论的自由(范围)，(pl.)地区

参考例句：

• The latitude of the island is 20 degrees south.该岛的纬度是南纬20度。
• The two cities are at approximately the same latitude.这两个城市差不多位于同一纬度上。

3 civilian   

adj.平民的，民用的，民众的

参考例句：

• There is no reliable information about civilian casualties.关于平民的伤亡还没有确凿的信息。
• He resigned his commission to take up a civilian job.他辞去军职而从事平民工作。

4 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

5 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

6 hostilities   

n.战争；敌意(hostility的复数)；敌对状态；战事

参考例句：

• Mexico called for an immediate cessation of hostilities. 墨西哥要求立即停止敌对行动。
• All the old hostilities resurfaced when they met again. 他们再次碰面时，过去的种种敌意又都冒了出来。

7 civilians   

平民，百姓( civilian的名词复数 )； 老百姓

参考例句：

• the bloody massacre of innocent civilians 对无辜平民的血腥屠杀
• At least 300 civilians are unaccounted for after the bombing raids. 遭轰炸袭击之后，至少有300名平民下落不明。

8 discriminate   

v.区别，辨别，区分；有区别地对待

参考例句：

• You must learn to discriminate between facts and opinions.你必须学会把事实和看法区分出来。
• They can discriminate hundreds of colours.他们能分辨上百种颜色。

9 hoops   

n.箍( hoop的名词复数 )；（篮球）篮圈；（旧时儿童玩的）大环子；（两端埋在地里的）小铁弓

参考例句：

• a barrel bound with iron hoops 用铁箍箍紧的桶
• Hoops in Paris were wider this season and skirts were shorter. 在巴黎，这个季节的裙圈比较宽大，裙裾却短一些。 来自飘（部分）

10 virtue   

n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力

参考例句：

• He was considered to be a paragon of virtue.他被认为是品德尽善尽美的典范。
• You need to decorate your mind with virtue.你应该用德行美化心灵。

11 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

12 legitimate   

adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法

参考例句：

• Sickness is a legitimate reason for asking for leave.生病是请假的一个正当的理由。
• That's a perfectly legitimate fear.怀有这种恐惧完全在情理之中。

13 protocols   

n.礼仪( protocol的名词复数 )；（外交条约的）草案；（数据传递的）协议；科学实验报告（或计划）

参考例句：

• There are also protocols on the testing of nuclear weapons. 也有关于核武器试验的协议。 来自辞典例句
• Hardware components and software design of network transport protocols are separately introduced. 介绍系统硬件组成及网络传输协议的软件设计。 来自互联网

14 discriminating   

a.有辨别能力的

参考例句：

• Due caution should be exercised in discriminating between the two. 在区别这两者时应该相当谨慎。
• Many businesses are accused of discriminating against women. 许多企业被控有歧视妇女的做法。

15 correlation   

n.相互关系，相关，关连

参考例句：

• The second group of measurements had a high correlation with the first.第二组测量数据与第一组高度相关。
• A high correlation exists in America between education and economic position.教育和经济地位在美国有极密切的关系。