FAXDES
2021-08-09T11:38:52+00:00
阿富汗的事情，今天真是让我感慨万千。我被部署到那里两次——一次在2008年，一次是2009-2010年。当时就已经能看得很清楚，只要我们一离开，塔利班就会全面占领。而今天，我们终于走到了这一步。
(Boy howdy am I having a lot of feelings about Afghanistan today
I deployed there twice--once in 2008 and once in 2009-10
It was already obvious that the Taliban would sweep through the very instant we left
And here we are today)
我知道塔利班多坏。我知道他们怎么对待女性和小男孩们。我知道他们会怎么处置那些翻译，和所有同我们合作的人。这个现实很可怕，很糟糕，但我们终于要走了，而我心里只有这种冷酷的解脱感。
(I know how bad the Taliban is. I know what they do to women and little boys. I know what they're going to do to the interpreters and the people who cooperated wit* h us, it's awful, it's bad, but we are leaving, and all I feel is grim relief)
阿富汗是一个尘土飞扬的、土黄色噩梦般的地方，这里到处都是骄傲而勇敢的人，他们不想让我们待在那里。我们称他们为“哈吉”，或者更难听的词，但他们要远比我们更好，更勇敢，更强，更聪明。
(Afghanistan is a dusty beige nightmare of a place full of proud, brave people who did not fucking want us there
We called them Hajjis and worse and they were better than we were, braver and stronger and smarter)
我记得翻那些我们抓到的人的手机，却只能找到一条条宝莱坞歌舞片的视频，还有女性在花丛里唱歌。我几乎从没找到过任何罪证。
(I remember going through the phones of the people we detained and finding clip after clip of Bollywood musicals, women singing in fields of flowers
Rarely did I find anything incriminating)
我记得找到一些政治宣传视频，把苏联的入侵和我们的什么什么行动剪到一起。我记得嘲笑这帮阿富汗人真的蠢，根本没不知道我们不是俄国人。最终意识到我才是蠢的那个。
(I remember finding propaganda footage cut together from the Soviet invasion and our own Operation Enduring Whatever
And laughing about how stupid the Afghans were to not know we aren't the Russians
And then eventually realizing I was the stupid one)
我记得每年，美国都要做出决定如何处理那些鸦片田。你可以不管它，但这样塔利班会去把农民的钱抢走，拿来买武器。你也可以地毯式轰炸掉这些田地，然后农民们就会去加入塔利班。
(I remember how every year the US would have to decide how to deal with the opium fields
You could let them alone, and then the Taliban would shake the farmers down and use the money to buy weapons
Or you could carpet bomb the fields and then the farmers would join the Taliban)
你也可以给这些农民们化肥作为激励，让他们种小麦，别种鸦片。然后农民们就会把化肥卖给塔利班，塔利班再拿来制作炸弹。
(Or you could give the farmers fertilizer as an incentive to grow wheat instead of opium poppy, and the farmers would sell the fertilizer to the Taliban, who used it to make explosives for IEDs that could destroy a million dollar MRAP and maim everyone inside)
我记得我们当时不允许乱扔电池，因为有人会翻垃圾桶然后收集上百个废电池，串联起来凑够一次电量，然后用这些电引爆炸弹。
(I remember we weren't allowed to throw batteries away because people who worked on base would go through the trash and collect hundreds of dead batteries, wire them together so they had just enough juice for one charge, and use that charge to detonate an IED)
我记得我室友去把两个死掉的士兵从悍马下面切割出来后的表情，我一直想象这辆悍马就是被这种用鸦片农的化肥制作的炸弹，拿一百个废电池引爆后，炸飞的。
(I remember the look on my roommate's face after she got back from cutting the dead bodies of two soldiers out of an HMMWV that got blown up by an IED that I have always imagined was made with fertilizer from an opium farmer and detonated with a hundred thrown-out batteries)
我记得一个在餐厅工作的阿富汗孩子，我们叫他牛仔，他总是戴着一个牛仔帽，穿着一个别人给他的“我旁边是傻子”T恤，他总是面带大大的笑容，大概高中年纪。
(I remember an Afghan kid who worked in the DFAC (cafeteria) who we called Cowboy, always wore this cowboy hat and an "I'm with stupid" t-shirt someone had given him, always with a big smile, high school age)
牛仔是个好学生，他想来美国上大学，但是没有学校肯收阿富汗学生，他们的教育系统太烂了。没有什么项目可以帮助他这样的孩子，我查过。我好奇他是不是已经死了，因为他给我们当服务员，因为他梦想不一样的生活。
(Cowboy was a good student and he wanted to go to college in America, but there weren't colleges that took Afghans, the education system was too shit. No program to help kids like him. I looked
I wonder if he's dead now, for serving us food and dreaming of something different)
但如果牛仔已经死了，那他估计也死了很久了。如果牛仔死了，那是我们的错，因为我们当初去了阿富汗，给他和他的家人一个信任我们的选项，而我们是这个星球上最不值得信赖的人。我们利用了这些人，然后把他们扔到一边，跟没事人一样。
(But if Cowboy is dead then he died a long time ago, and if Cowboy is dead it's our fault for going there in the first place, giving his family the option of trusting us when we are the least trustworthy people on the planet
We use people up and throw them away like it's nothing)
现在我们要走了，可以预料的事情也在发生了，塔利班在推进，马上夺回整个国家。他们拥有你买不到、训练不出来的东西，他们有耐心，他们残忍，这些品格值得我们尊敬，我们没有给他们相称的尊敬。
(And now we are leaving and the predictable thing is happening, the Taliban is surging in and taking it all back
They have what you can't buy or train, they have patience and a bloody-mindedness that warrants more respect than we ever gave them)
我属于“赶紧滚出阿富汗”阵营，而正如我的一个朋友今天跟我说的那样，这一直是塔利班的阵营。你要么是塔利班阵营，要么是“永远待在阿富汗”阵营，没有第三个阵营。
(I am Team Get The Fuck Out Of Afghanistan which, as a friend pointed out to me today, has always been Team Taliban
It's Team Taliban or Team Stay Forever, there is no third team)
所以我坐在这里读着这些好悲伤好悲伤的推文，说什么发生在阿富汗的苦难，什么塔利班渐渐深入的恐怖，什么这一切正在发生太可怕了，但我只能感觉到一种冷酷的快乐，即，终于，你们这群傻逼，你们终于也要面对了。
(So I'm sitting here reading these sad fucking tweets about the suffering in Afghanistan and the horror of the encroaching Taliban and how awful it is that this is happening but I can't stop feeling this grim happiness, like, finally, you fuckers, finally you have to see it too)
不要再有被炸死的士兵了。不要再有手机上的宝莱坞视频，和他们的主人被送去天知道哪里了。不要再有这些伪善了。不要再假装这一切有任何意义。它没有。这场战争毫无意义。
(No more blown up soldiers. No more Bollywood videos on phones whose owners are getting shipped god knows where. No more hypocrisy
No more pretending it meant anything. It didn't
It didn't mean a fucking thing)
(Boy howdy am I having a lot of feelings about Afghanistan today
I deployed there twice--once in 2008 and once in 2009-10
It was already obvious that the Taliban would sweep through the very instant we left
And here we are today)
我知道塔利班多坏。我知道他们怎么对待女性和小男孩们。我知道他们会怎么处置那些翻译，和所有同我们合作的人。这个现实很可怕，很糟糕，但我们终于要走了，而我心里只有这种冷酷的解脱感。
(I know how bad the Taliban is. I know what they do to women and little boys. I know what they're going to do to the interpreters and the people who cooperated wit* h us, it's awful, it's bad, but we are leaving, and all I feel is grim relief)
阿富汗是一个尘土飞扬的、土黄色噩梦般的地方，这里到处都是骄傲而勇敢的人，他们不想让我们待在那里。我们称他们为“哈吉”，或者更难听的词，但他们要远比我们更好，更勇敢，更强，更聪明。
(Afghanistan is a dusty beige nightmare of a place full of proud, brave people who did not fucking want us there
We called them Hajjis and worse and they were better than we were, braver and stronger and smarter)
我记得翻那些我们抓到的人的手机，却只能找到一条条宝莱坞歌舞片的视频，还有女性在花丛里唱歌。我几乎从没找到过任何罪证。
(I remember going through the phones of the people we detained and finding clip after clip of Bollywood musicals, women singing in fields of flowers
Rarely did I find anything incriminating)
我记得找到一些政治宣传视频，把苏联的入侵和我们的什么什么行动剪到一起。我记得嘲笑这帮阿富汗人真的蠢，根本没不知道我们不是俄国人。最终意识到我才是蠢的那个。
(I remember finding propaganda footage cut together from the Soviet invasion and our own Operation Enduring Whatever
And laughing about how stupid the Afghans were to not know we aren't the Russians
And then eventually realizing I was the stupid one)
我记得每年，美国都要做出决定如何处理那些鸦片田。你可以不管它，但这样塔利班会去把农民的钱抢走，拿来买武器。你也可以地毯式轰炸掉这些田地，然后农民们就会去加入塔利班。
(I remember how every year the US would have to decide how to deal with the opium fields
You could let them alone, and then the Taliban would shake the farmers down and use the money to buy weapons
Or you could carpet bomb the fields and then the farmers would join the Taliban)
你也可以给这些农民们化肥作为激励，让他们种小麦，别种鸦片。然后农民们就会把化肥卖给塔利班，塔利班再拿来制作炸弹。
(Or you could give the farmers fertilizer as an incentive to grow wheat instead of opium poppy, and the farmers would sell the fertilizer to the Taliban, who used it to make explosives for IEDs that could destroy a million dollar MRAP and maim everyone inside)
我记得我们当时不允许乱扔电池，因为有人会翻垃圾桶然后收集上百个废电池，串联起来凑够一次电量，然后用这些电引爆炸弹。
(I remember we weren't allowed to throw batteries away because people who worked on base would go through the trash and collect hundreds of dead batteries, wire them together so they had just enough juice for one charge, and use that charge to detonate an IED)
我记得我室友去把两个死掉的士兵从悍马下面切割出来后的表情，我一直想象这辆悍马就是被这种用鸦片农的化肥制作的炸弹，拿一百个废电池引爆后，炸飞的。
(I remember the look on my roommate's face after she got back from cutting the dead bodies of two soldiers out of an HMMWV that got blown up by an IED that I have always imagined was made with fertilizer from an opium farmer and detonated with a hundred thrown-out batteries)
我记得一个在餐厅工作的阿富汗孩子，我们叫他牛仔，他总是戴着一个牛仔帽，穿着一个别人给他的“我旁边是傻子”T恤，他总是面带大大的笑容，大概高中年纪。
(I remember an Afghan kid who worked in the DFAC (cafeteria) who we called Cowboy, always wore this cowboy hat and an "I'm with stupid" t-shirt someone had given him, always with a big smile, high school age)
牛仔是个好学生，他想来美国上大学，但是没有学校肯收阿富汗学生，他们的教育系统太烂了。没有什么项目可以帮助他这样的孩子，我查过。我好奇他是不是已经死了，因为他给我们当服务员，因为他梦想不一样的生活。
(Cowboy was a good student and he wanted to go to college in America, but there weren't colleges that took Afghans, the education system was too shit. No program to help kids like him. I looked
I wonder if he's dead now, for serving us food and dreaming of something different)
但如果牛仔已经死了，那他估计也死了很久了。如果牛仔死了，那是我们的错，因为我们当初去了阿富汗，给他和他的家人一个信任我们的选项，而我们是这个星球上最不值得信赖的人。我们利用了这些人，然后把他们扔到一边，跟没事人一样。
(But if Cowboy is dead then he died a long time ago, and if Cowboy is dead it's our fault for going there in the first place, giving his family the option of trusting us when we are the least trustworthy people on the planet
We use people up and throw them away like it's nothing)
现在我们要走了，可以预料的事情也在发生了，塔利班在推进，马上夺回整个国家。他们拥有你买不到、训练不出来的东西，他们有耐心，他们残忍，这些品格值得我们尊敬，我们没有给他们相称的尊敬。
(And now we are leaving and the predictable thing is happening, the Taliban is surging in and taking it all back
They have what you can't buy or train, they have patience and a bloody-mindedness that warrants more respect than we ever gave them)
我属于“赶紧滚出阿富汗”阵营，而正如我的一个朋友今天跟我说的那样，这一直是塔利班的阵营。你要么是塔利班阵营，要么是“永远待在阿富汗”阵营，没有第三个阵营。
(I am Team Get The Fuck Out Of Afghanistan which, as a friend pointed out to me today, has always been Team Taliban
It's Team Taliban or Team Stay Forever, there is no third team)
所以我坐在这里读着这些好悲伤好悲伤的推文，说什么发生在阿富汗的苦难，什么塔利班渐渐深入的恐怖，什么这一切正在发生太可怕了，但我只能感觉到一种冷酷的快乐，即，终于，你们这群傻逼，你们终于也要面对了。
(So I'm sitting here reading these sad fucking tweets about the suffering in Afghanistan and the horror of the encroaching Taliban and how awful it is that this is happening but I can't stop feeling this grim happiness, like, finally, you fuckers, finally you have to see it too)
不要再有被炸死的士兵了。不要再有手机上的宝莱坞视频，和他们的主人被送去天知道哪里了。不要再有这些伪善了。不要再假装这一切有任何意义。它没有。这场战争毫无意义。
(No more blown up soldiers. No more Bollywood videos on phones whose owners are getting shipped god knows where. No more hypocrisy
No more pretending it meant anything. It didn't
It didn't mean a fucking thing)