2012级翻译硕士翻译练习：第二届《参考消息》读者译文大赛译文

第二届《参考消息》读者译文大赛竞赛译文

A Long Time Going

Peter Bergen

Osama bin Laden long fancied himself something of a poet. His compositions tended to the morbid, and a poem written two years after 9/11 in which he contemplated the circumstances of his death was no exception. Bin Laden wrote, “Let my grave be an eagle's belly, its resting place in the sky's atmosphere amongst perched eagles.”

As it turns out, bin Laden's grave is somewhere at the bottom of the Arabian Sea, to which his body was consigned after his death in Pakistan at the hands of U.S. Navy SEALs. If there is poetry in bin Laden's end, it is the poetry of justice, and it calls to mind what President George W. Bush had predicted would happen in a speech he gave to Congress just nine days after 9/11. In an uncharacteristic burst of eloquence, Bush asserted that bin Laden and al-Qaeda would eventually be consigned to “history's unmarked grave of discarded lies.”

Though bin Laden's body may have been buried at sea on May 2, the burial of bin Ladenism has been a decade in the making. Indeed, it began on the very day of bin Laden's greatest triumph. At first glance, the 9/11 assault looked like a stunning win for al-Qaeda, a ragtag band of jihadists who had bloodied the nose of the world's only superpower. But on closer look it became something far less significant, because the attacks on Washington and New York City did not achieve bin Laden's key strategic goal: the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Middle East, which he imagined would lead to the collapse of all the American-backed authoritarian regimes in the region.

Instead, the opposite happened: the U.S. invaded and occupied first Afghanistan and then Iraq. By attacking the American mainland and inviting reprisal, al-Qaeda——which means “the base” in Arabic——lost the best base it had ever had: Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. In this sense, 9/11 was similar to another surprise attack, that on Pearl Harbor on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, a stunning tactical victory that set in motion events that would end in the defeat of imperial Japan.

Shrewder members of bin Laden's inner circle had warned him before 9/11 that antagonizing the U.S. would be counterproductive, and internal al-Qaeda memos written after the fall of the Taliban and later recovered by the U.S. military show that some of bin Laden's followers fully understood the folly of the attacks. In 2002 an al-Qaeda insider wrote to another, saying, “Regrettably, my brother ... during just six months, we lost what we built in years.”

The responsibility for that act of hubris lies squarely with bin Laden: despite his reputation for shyness and diffidence, he ran al-Qaeda as a dictatorship. His son Omar recalls that the men who worked for his father had a habit of requesting permission

before they spoke with their leader, saying, “Dear prince, may I speak?” Joining al-Qaeda meant taking a personal religious oath of allegiance to bin Laden, just as joining the Nazi Party had required swearing personal fealty to the Führer. So bin Laden's group became just as much a hostage to its leader's flawed strategic vision as the Nazis were to Hitler's.

The key to understanding this vision and all of bin Laden's actions was his utter conviction that he was an instrument of God's will. In short, he was a religious zealot. That zealotry first revealed itself when he was a teenager. Khaled Batarfi, a soccer-playing buddy of bin Laden's on the streets of Jidda, Saudi Arabia, where they both grew up, remembers his solemn friend praying seven times a day (two more than mandated by Islamic convention) and fasting twice a week in imitation of the Prophet Muhammad. For entertainment, bin Laden would assemble a group of friends at his house to chant songs about the liberation of Palestine.

Bin Laden's religious zeal was colored by the fact that his family had made its vast fortune as the principal contractor renovating the holy sites of Mecca and Medina, which gave him a direct connection to Islam's holiest places. In his early 20s, bin Laden worked in the family business; he was a priggish young man who was also studying economics at a university.

His destiny would change with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in late 1979. The Afghan war prompted the billionaire's son to launch an ambitious plan to confront the Soviets with a small group of Arabs under his command. That group eventually provided the nucleus of al-Qaeda, which bin Laden founded in 1988 as the war against the Soviets began to wind down. The purpose of al-Qaeda was to take jihad to other parts of the globe and eventually to the U.S., the nation he believed was leading a Western conspiracy to destroy true Islam. In the 1990s bin Laden would often describe America as “the head of the snake.”

Jamal Khalifa, his best friend at the university in Jidda and later also his brother-in-law, told me bin Laden was driven not only by a desire to implement what he saw as God's will but also by a fear of divine punishment if he failed to do so. So not defending Islam from what he came to believe was its most important enemy would be disobeying God, something he would never do.

In 1997, when I was a producer for CNN, I met with bin Laden in eastern Afghanistan to film his first television interview. He struck me as intelligent and well informed, someone who comported himself more like a cleric than like the revolutionary he was quickly becoming. His followers treated bin Laden with great deference, referring to him as “the sheik,” and hung on his every pronouncement.

During the course of that interview, bin Laden laid out his rationale for his plan to attack the U.S., whose support for Israel and the regimes in Saudi Arabia and Egypt

made it, in his mind, the enemy of Islam. Bin Laden also explained that the U.S. was as weak as the Soviet Union had been, and he cited the American withdrawal from Vietnam in the 1970s as evidence for this view. He poured scorn on the notion that the U.S. thought of itself as a superpower “even after all these successive defeats.”

That would turn out to be a dangerous delusion, which would culminate in bin Laden's death at the hands of the same U.S. soldiers he had long disparaged as weaklings. Now that he is gone, there will inevitably be some jockeying to succeed him. A U.S. counterterrorism official told me that there was “no succession plan in place” to replace bin Laden. While the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri had long been his deputy, he is not the natural, charismatic leader that bin Laden was. U.S. officials believe that al-Zawahiri is not popular with his colleagues, and they hope there will be disharmony and discord as the militants sort out the succession.

As they do so, the jihadists will be mindful that their world has passed them by. The al-Qaeda leadership, its foot soldiers and its ideology played no role in the series of protests and revolts that have rolled across the Middle East and North Africa, from Tunisia to Egypt and then on to Bahrain, Yemen and Libya. Bin Laden must have watched these events unfold with a mixture of excitement and deep worry. Overthrowing the dictatorships and monarchies of the Middle East was long his central goal, but the Arab revolutions were not the kind he had envisioned. Protesters in the streets of Tunis and Cairo didn't carry placards with pictures of bin Laden's face, and the Facebook revolutionaries who launched the uprisings represent everything al-Qaeda hates: they are secular, liberal and antiauthoritarian, and their ranks include women. The eventual outcome of these revolts will not be to al-Qaeda's satisfaction either, because almost no one in the streets of Egypt, Libya or Yemen is clamoring for the imposition of a Taliban-style theocracy, al-Qaeda's preferred end for the states in the region.

Between the Arab Spring and the death of bin Laden, it is hard to imagine greater blows to al-Qaeda's ideology and organization. President Obama has characterized al-Qaeda and its affiliates as “small men on the wrong side of history.” For al-Qaeda, that history just sped up, as bin Laden's body floated down into the ocean deeps and its proper place in the unmarked grave of discarded lies.

漫漫不归路

彼得·伯根

乌萨马·本·拉丹一直自诩有几分诗才。他的作品趋于病态，写于“9·11”事件发生两年后的一首诗也不例外。本·拉丹在诗中思忖自己死时的情形，他写道：“就让我葬身鹰腹；苍穹之上，栖息的群鹰之间，是我的安息之处。”

孰料，本·拉丹却葬身于阿拉伯海海底的某个地方。他在巴基斯坦死于美国海军海豹突击队之手，然后尸体就抛到了那里。如果本·拉丹的末日具有诗意，那是正义之诗，令人想起乔治·W·布什总统在“9·11”事件发生仅9天后向国会讲话时做出的预言。布什以难得一见的雄辩口才断言，本·拉丹和“基地”组织终将被抛入“埋葬遭唾弃谎言的历史无名冢”。

本·拉丹的尸体或许在5月2日葬入了大海，但埋葬本·拉丹主义的进程却持续了10年。确切地说，其开始之时正是本·拉丹取得最辉煌胜利之日。乍看之下，“9·11”袭击像是“基地”组织的惊人胜利，圣战分子构成的乌合之众挫伤了全世界唯一的超级大国。但是，仔细想来，此事的意义远没有那么重大，因为袭击华盛顿和纽约市的行动并未实现本·拉丹的关键战略目标：美国撤离中东。按照他的设想，这会导致该地区所有由美国撑腰的专制政权垮台。

然而，结果恰恰相反：美国先后出兵占领阿富汗和伊拉克。“基地”组织(阿拉伯语的发音是“格伊达”)袭击美国本土并招致报复，从而失去了曾经有过的最理想基地：塔利班统治下的阿富汗。从这个意义上讲，“9·11”事件类似于另一次突袭，也就是发生在1941年12月7日清晨的珍珠港事件。那次震惊世人的战术大捷引发了若干事件，以日本帝国失败告终。

“9·11”事件之前，本·拉丹核心圈里比较老谋深算的成员就警告他说，与美国为敌将适得其反。“基地”组织在塔利班倒台后撰写的内部备忘录后为美军搜获。备忘录显示，本·拉丹的一些追随者完全清楚这些袭击行动有多么愚蠢。2002年，一名了解内情的“基地”组织成员写信给另一名成员说：“可惜啊，兄弟，……在短短半年里，我们多年的心血就付诸东流。”

那次狂妄行动的责任完全在于本·拉丹：尽管外界通常认为他腼腆而缺乏自信，但他却以独裁手段掌管“基地”组织。他的儿子奥马尔回忆说，父亲的手下

习惯于先征得许可再对他们的领袖说话。他们说：“亲爱的头领，我可以说话吗？”加入“基地”组织意味着向本·拉丹本人许下虔诚的效忠誓言，就像加入纳粹党必须宣誓忠诚于元首本人一样。因此，如同纳粹分子之于希特勒，本·拉丹的组织也遭到其领导人有缺陷的战略构想的裹胁。

理解这种构想和本·拉丹所有行动的关键是，他笃信自己是执行真主意志的工具。简言之，他是个宗教狂。这种狂热在他十几岁时就初现端倪。哈立德·巴塔尔菲是本·拉丹在沙特阿拉伯城市吉达街头踢足球的伙伴，他们都在那里长大。他还记得自己不苟言笑的伙伴每天祷告7次(比伊斯兰习俗的规定还多两次)，仿效先知穆罕默德每周斋戒两次。至于娱乐活动，本·拉丹会把一群朋友召集到自己家里，吟唱关于解放巴勒斯坦的歌曲。

本·拉丹的宗教热情受到一个因素的影响：作为整修麦加和麦地那圣迹的主要承包商，他的家族赚取了巨额财富，也使他与伊斯兰教最神圣的地方有了直接关联。二十出头时，本·拉丹在家族企业工作；他是个自命不凡的年轻人，还在大学学习经济学。

他的命运因为苏联1979年底入侵阿富汗而发生了变化。阿富汗战争促使这个亿万富翁的儿子实施了一项雄心勃勃的计划，指挥一小群阿拉伯人与苏联对抗。反苏战争接近尾声时，本·拉丹于1988年创建了“基地”组织，那些人最终构成了该组织的核心。“基地”组织的宗旨是把圣战打到全球其他地区，最终打到美国。他认为这个国家正在引领西方实施阴谋，以消灭真正的伊斯兰教。20世纪90年代，本·拉丹经常把美国描述为“万恶之源”。

贾迈勒·哈利法是他在吉达上大学时最要好的朋友，后来成为他的姐夫。他告诉我，促使本·拉丹行动的不光是执行他所谓真主意志的热切愿望，还有一旦失败会遭到神明惩罚的恐惧感。因此，如果不保护伊斯兰教免遭他心目中的头号敌人的攻击，就是违抗真主的意志，而他绝不会这样做。

1997年，我在CNN担任制片人时，在阿富汗东部与本·拉丹见面，拍摄他的第一次电视访谈。他给我的印象是聪明且见闻广博，举手投足不像是很快将成长为革命者，反倒更像是神职人员。本·拉丹的追随者对他毕恭毕敬，称他为“头领”，对他发表的所有见解都洗耳恭听。

那次访谈中，本·拉丹列举了计划袭击美国的理论依据：美国支持以色列以

及沙特阿拉伯和埃及政权，所以在他看来是伊斯兰教的敌人。本·拉丹还解释说，美国像昔日的苏联一样不堪一击。他把美国2 0世纪7 0年代撤离越南作为支持这种观点的证据。“即便在经历所有这一系列失败之后”，美国居然还认为自己是超级大国，他对此嗤之以鼻。

结果证明这是一种危险的错觉，以本·拉丹死在他长期斥为软弱无能的美军手中而告终。既然他已身亡，势必会为接替他的位置而出现一番争夺。一位美国反恐官员告诉我，没有取代本·拉丹的“现成接班计划”。埃及的扎瓦希里长期担任他的副手，但不是他那种天然生就、魅力十足的领导者。美国官员认为，扎瓦希里并不受同伙拥戴，他们希望这些好战分子挑选继任者的时候会出现分歧与不和。

在此过程中，圣战分子会发现他们大势已去。在席卷中东和北非，从突尼斯到埃及乃至巴林、也门和利比亚的一系列抗议活动和暴动中，“基地”组织的领导人、走卒和意识形态没有发挥任何作用。本·拉丹肯定曾怀着既兴奋又极度忧虑的心情关注事态进展。推翻中东独裁政权和君主统治是他长期以来的核心目标，但阿拉伯革命不是他预想的那种革命。突尼斯和开罗街头的抗议者并未高举印有本·拉丹头像的标语牌，发动起义的“脸谱”革命者代表着“基地”组织厌憎的一切：他们信奉世俗主义，主张自由主义，反对独裁，其成员包括妇女。这些起义的最终结果也不会令“基地”组织满意，因为在埃及、利比亚和也门的街头，几乎没有人叫嚷要实施塔利班式的神权统治，而这种统治才是“基地”组织希望该地区各国出现的结局。

先是阿拉伯之春，然后是本·拉丹之死，很难想像“基地”组织的意识形态和构成还会受到什么更沉重的打击。奥巴马总统把“基地”组织及其党羽描述为“逆历史潮流而动的小人物”。对“基地”组织来说，就在本·拉丹的尸体缓缓沉入深海，适得其所地落入埋葬遭唾弃谎言的无名冢时，历史已然加快了脚步。