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In November 2016, it blindsided them.
2016年11月，他们都傻眼了。
“He has relentlessly questioned the efficacy of force,” said the journalist Jeffrey Goldberg toward the end of Obama’s two terms,
"他无情地质疑武力的效力，"记者杰弗里-戈德堡在奥巴马两届任期即将结束时说，
“but he has also become the most successful terrorist-hunter in the history of the presidency, one who will hand to his successor a set of tools an accomplished assassin would envy.”
"但他也成为总统历史上最成功的恐怖分子猎手，他将把一套成功的刺客都会羡慕的工具交给他的继任者。"
This outcome was scary, no matter how tightly controlled, humanely practised and judiciously governed – and that was before the true identity of Obama’s successor became known only six months after Goldberg wrote.
无论如何严格控制、人道地实践和审慎地治理，结果都很可怕--此时奥巴马的继任者的真实身份还无人知晓，距离戈德堡写完文章也仅过去了六个月。
It was not as though Obama could have turned a blind eye to terrorism.
似乎奥巴马不可能对恐怖主义视而不见。
He was a politician whose career depended on protecting the American people.
他是一个政治家，他的职业生涯取决于保护美国人民。
But not only did Obama design a far bigger and more encompassing form of war than necessary, and not only did he undermine the US’s earlier commitments to a legal order consecrating peace to do so.
但是，奥巴马不仅设计了一场远比必要的规模更大、范围更广的战争，而且他还破坏了美国早先对神圣和平的法律秩序的承诺。
His policies helped create the conditions for a shocking and terrible finale.
他的政策有助于为一个令人震惊和可怕的结局创造条件。
No dove, Donald Trump nevertheless capitalised on the perception that mainstream politicians were committed to endless wars. And he won.
唐纳德-特朗普并非爱好和平之人，但他利用了人们对主流政治家致力于无休止战争的看法。而且他赢了。
The arc of the moral universe ran through the humanisation of interminable conflict.
道德宇宙的弧线贯穿了无休止的冲突的人道化过程。
But it bent toward an ogre. More and more humane forms of fighting abroad had now brought disaster at home, too.
但它却指向了一个食人魔。国外越来越人性化的战斗形式现在也给国内带来了灾难。
Then Trump went on to repeat the very same pirouette from anti-war candidate to endless war president that Obama had performed.
然后，同奥巴马一样，特朗普摇身一变，从反战的候选人变成了支持无休止战争的总统。
And now Joe Biden risks doing the same.
而现在，乔-拜登可能也在重复同样的过程。
In March 2009, a landmark legal brief gave clear, jaw-dropping notice of how Obama’s wars would be conducted, formalising and globalising the “war on terror” in a way that Bush had never done officially.
2009年3月，一份具有里程碑意义的法律文件清楚地、令人瞠目结舌地说明了奥巴马的战争将如何进行，以布什从未正式做过的方式将 "反恐战争 "正式化和全球化。
There would be no limitations in space or time on the conduct of counter-terrorism.
在进行反恐时，不会有任何空间或时间上的限制。
This would matter much more than Obama’s more widely remarked reforms: symbolically banning torture or fiddling with prisoner and trial rules.
这比奥巴马更广为人知的改革要重要得多：象征性地禁止酷刑或篡改囚犯和审判规则。
Two months later, Obama met in the Oval Office with a group of civil libertarians and human rights advocates.
两个月后，奥巴马在椭圆形办公室会见了一群公民自由主义者和人权倡导者。
“No one questions your values,” began Anthony Romero, the American Civil Liberties Union head.
"没有人质疑你的价值观，"美国公民自由联盟负责人安东尼-罗梅罗开始说道。
“But when your substantive policies are not substantively different from your predecessor’s, then the comparisons are fair.”
"但是，当你所实行的政策与你的前任没有实质性区别时，那么这种比较就是公平的。"
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
