考研英语阅读理解中的文章，很多来自一些外刊杂志方面的题材。接下来，北京文都考研网为扩宽2020考研学子的知识面，整理了考研英语经济学人外刊:美国在空袭中杀害了多少平民?供考生参考。
2020考研英语经济学人:美国在空袭中杀害了多少平民?
The Pentagon does not really know
五角大楼真的不知道
America has conducted 108 air strikes in Somalia since 2017, killing some 800 people. The Pentagon says they were all jihadists. Amnesty International, a human rights organisation, disagrees. It has gathered detailed evidence suggesting that five recent strikes alone killed 14 civilians.
自2017年以来，美国在索马里发动了108次空袭，共造成约800人死亡。五角大楼称，他们都是圣战分子。人权组织“大赦国际”并不认同这一观点。该组织收集了详尽的证据，证据显示仅最近五次空袭就造成了14名平民的死亡。
That discrepancy between the civilians that external observers say have been killed in American air strikes and the number the government owns up to is repeated across the world.
外部观察人士称，在美国空袭中丧生的平民实际人数与政府所承认人数之间的差异在全球范围内不断地上演着。
Donald Trump came to office pledging to wind down America’s wars. Instead, he ramped some of them up. The campaign in Somalia against al-Shabab, a brutal jihadist group which is aligned to al-Qaeda and controls a quarter of the country, saw the number of air strikes trebled from 14 in 2016 to 45 last year. There were 28 in the first three months of 2019 alone.
唐纳德·特朗普上任时承诺要结束美国的战争。但实际情况是，战争不但没减少，还增加了一些。青年党(一个与基地组织结盟、控制着索马里四分之一地区的残暴的圣战组织)遭受美军空袭的次数增加了两倍，从2016年的14次增至去年的45次，而2019年仅前三个月就达到了28次。
In part, that may reflect looser rules. Barack Obama had decreed that commanders in places like Somalia and Pakistan—outside of formal war zones like Iraq—required “near certainty” that a target was a high-value terrorist, no civilians would be killed or injured except in “extraordinary circumstances”, and decisions would be informed by inter-agency consultation.
在某种程度上，这意味着规则变得宽松了。贝拉克·奥巴马曾下令，在索马里和巴基斯坦等地区(像伊拉克这样的正式战区除外)的指挥官必须“几乎完全确定”目标是一名高价值的恐怖分子才能发动袭击，因此除非“特殊情况”外，一般不会造成平民伤亡，并且袭击的决定往往是由多个机构通过协商确定的。
In 2017 Mr Trump overhauled these rules. He not only diluted Mr Obama’s special restrictions on secret wars, but also allowed specific countries to be declared an “area of active hostilities”. In such places, International Humanitarian Law (IHL)—the more permissive rules that apply in avowed battlefields like Iraq and Afghanistan—would be in force.
2017年，特朗普彻底改变了这些规则。他不仅削弱了奥巴马对秘密战争的特殊限制，还允许将特定国家宣布为“积极敌对地区”。这些地区将适用国际人道法(一个适用于伊拉克和阿富汗等公开战场的更为宽松的规则)。(注：国际人道法是一种在战争地区为了保护普通平民等非战斗人员的最基本的国际法，让“积极敌对地区”适用国际人道法将更利于美国对这些地区发动袭击和战争。)
In Somalia this meant commanders now needed only “reasonable certainty” that a target was present, and could make their decision without recourse to officials back home. This increased the risk of civilians being misidentified as combatants. Separately, the shift to IHL also meant that commanders could go after foot-soldiers, not just al-Shabab bigwigs.
这意味着索马里的美军指挥官现在只需要“很大程度上确认”存在目标，就可以在不向国内上级官员请示的情况下作出决定。这就增加了平民被误认为是作战人员的风险。另外，转向国际人道法也意味着指挥官可以下令追捕普通的青年党成员，而不仅仅是青年党头目。(注：foot-soldiers的含义是组织、机构中的职位较低的工作人员。)
Disputes over the civilian toll from air campaigns go well beyond Somalia. More American bombs and missiles fell on Afghanistan in 2018 than in any year since published records began a decade ago—more than five times as many as in 2015. Civilian deaths from air strikes correspondingly rose by 87% between 2017 and 2018 to 463, according to Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), a monitoring group.
关于空袭造成平民伤亡的争论不仅仅只在索马里。2018年，美国投放在阿富汗的炸弹和导弹的数量远远超过了从10年前有公开记录以来的任何一年，是2015年投放数量的5倍多。根据“武装暴力行动”(一个战争监测组织)的数据，空袭造成的平民死亡人数在2017年至2018年间增长了87%，达到了463人。
That includes bombs dropped by the Afghan air force, which has far less experience in using precision weapons. But the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), whose estimates are similar to those of AOAV, says that 62% of aerial casualties—deaths and injuries—were inflicted by the NATO-led coalition, whose air power is largely American. NATO accepts just 62 of those deaths, a small proportion of UNAMA’s total, though it agrees that another 68 are disputed.
其中包括阿富汗空军(其在使用精确武器方面的经验要少得多)投下的炸弹。但联合国阿富汗援助团(其与“武装暴力行动”的估计差不多)称，62%空袭所致的伤亡(包括死亡和受伤)是由北约联盟造成的，而北约的空中力量主要由美军组成。北约只承认造成了62名平民的死亡，但这只是联合国阿富汗援助团统计的死亡人数中的一小部分，尽管北约认同另有68人存在争议。
A similar story has played out in the Middle East. By March the American-led coalition battling Islamic State across Iraq and Syria had owned up to at least 1,257 civilian deaths since the start of the war.
中东也上演了类似的故事。截至今年3月，以美国为首的打击伊拉克和叙利亚境内伊斯兰国的联盟承认，自战争开始以来，至少造成了1257名平民的死亡。
Airwars, a London-based NGO, says the figure is probably six times higher, over 7,500—an average of one civilian death every four strikes. Airwars is particularly scathing of Britain’s claim to have killed just one civilian among 4,000 or so enemies. Britain, it says, is “seemingly incapable of detecting civilian casualties from its urban actions.”
总部位于伦敦的非政府组织“空战”表示，实际死亡人数可能要高出6倍，总计有超过7500人——平均每四次空袭就导致一名平民死亡。英国声称，每杀死4000多名敌人仅会造成一名平民的死亡，“空战”尤其对这一说法提出了严厉的谴责。该组织表示，英国“似乎无法从城市袭击行动中发现平民的伤亡”。
[重难点词汇]
discrepancy [dɪs'krɛpənsi] n. 不符;矛盾;相差
commander [kə'mændɚ] n. 指挥官;司令官
extraordinary [ɛkˈstrɔrdənˌɛri] adj. 非凡的;特别的;离奇的;特派的
overhaul ['ovɚhɔl] vt. 分解检查，大修;追上并超过 n. 彻底检修，详细检查
correspondingly [,kɔrə'spɑndɪŋli] adv. 相应地，相对地
casualty ['kæʒuəlti] n. 意外事故;伤亡人员;急诊室
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