譯/李京倫
美出兵阿富汗 注定失敗收場
It was 8 a.m., and the sleepy Afghan sergeant stood at what he called the front line, one month before the city of Kunduz fell to the Taliban. An unspoken agreement protected both sides. There would be no shooting.
早上八點，阿富汗東北部城市昆都士一名昏昏欲睡的阿富汗士兵站在他所謂的前線，此時距離昆都士落入激進組織神學士手中還有一個月。有一項心照不宣的協議保護阿富汗政府軍和神學士雙方。沒有人會開槍。
That was the nature of the strange war the Afghans just fought, and lost, with the Taliban.
這就是阿富汗人與神學士開打又輸掉的奇怪戰爭的本質。
President Joe Biden and his advisers say the Afghan military's total collapse proved its unworthiness, vindicating the U.S.' pullout. But the extraordinary melting away of government and army, and the bloodless transition in most places so far, point to something more fundamental.
美國總統拜登和他的顧問都說，阿富汗軍隊全面潰敗，證明政府軍不值得支持和美國撤軍是對的。不過，阿富汗政府與軍隊潰散速度超乎尋常，以及到目前為止阿富汗多數地方實現不流血的政權轉移，凸顯一件更重要的事。
The war the Americans thought they were fighting against the Taliban was not the war their Afghan allies were fighting. That made the U.S.' war, like other such neocolonialist adventures, most likely doomed from the start.
美國人以為這場戰爭在對抗神學士，他們的阿富汗盟友卻不這麼看待，這使美國的這場戰爭就像其他這類新殖民主義冒險一樣，一開始就注定很可能失敗。
Recent history shows it is foolish for Western powers to fight wars in other people's lands, despite the temptations. Homegrown insurgencies, though seemingly outmatched in money, technology, arms, air power and the rest, are often better motivated, have a constant stream of new recruits and often draw sustenance from just over the border.
最近的歷史告訴我們，西方強權到別人土地上打仗，看來誘人卻很愚蠢。當地叛亂分子看似在金錢、技術、武器和空中優勢等方面遠遠不如人，卻能不斷招募新血，並經常獲得鄰國支援。
Outside powers are fighting one war as visitors — occupiers — and their erstwhile allies who actually live there, something entirely different. In Afghanistan, it was not good versus evil, as the Americans saw it, but neighbor against neighbor.
外來強權打仗就像訪客或是占領者，而對於住在當地的強權前盟友來說，有些事截然不同。在阿富汗，政府軍與神學士的關係並非美國人眼中的正邪對立，而是鄰居互鬥。
Each time the intervening power in all these places announced that the homegrown insurgency had been definitively beaten or that a corner had been turned, smoldering embers led to new conflagrations.
每當外來強權在這些地方宣布徹底擊敗當地叛亂團體或戰況好轉時，悶燒的餘燼總會演變為新的大火。
The Americans thought they had defeated the Taliban by the end of 2001. They were no longer a concern. But the result was actually far more ambiguous.
美國人以為在2001年底就擊敗了神學士，神學士不再是問題，但其實結果遠為含混不清。
"In the long run all colonial wars are lost," the historian of Portugal's misadventures in Africa, Patrick Chabal, wrote 20 years ago, just as the Americans were becoming fatally embroiled in Afghanistan.
研究葡萄牙在非洲厄運的歷史學家查巴爾，20年前在美國捲入致命阿富汗戰事時寫道：「長期來看，所有殖民戰爭都會輸。」
The superpower's two-decade entanglement and ultimate defeat was all the more surprising in that the America of the decades preceding the millennium had been suffused with talk of the supposed "lessons" of Vietnam.
超級強權美國與阿富汗糾纏20年，而且最終戰敗，更加讓人驚訝，因為在西元2000年前的數十年間，美國內部一直在討論所謂越戰的「教訓」。
The United States thought it was helping Afghans fight an avatar of evil, the Taliban, the running mate of international terrorism. That was the American optic and the American war.
美國以為在幫助阿富汗人對抗神學士這個邪惡化身、國際恐怖組織的同夥。這是美國觀點和美國人的戰爭。
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