Re: [新聞] 被拜登當成代罪羔羊 阿富汗陸軍將領投書

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/25/opinion/afghanistan-taliban-army.html
20210825 紐約時報 Sami Sadat

I Commanded Afghan Troops This Year. We Were Betrayed.

我指揮今年的阿富汗軍隊 而我們被背叛了

https://i.imgur.com/uBR4CtR.jpeg

For the past three and a half months, I fought day and night, nonstop, in
southern Afghanistan’s Helmand Province against an escalating and bloody
Taliban offensive. Coming under frequent attack, we held the Taliban back andinflicted heavy casualties. Then I was called to Kabul to command Afghanistan’s special forces. But the Taliban already were entering the city; it was too late.

I am exhausted. I am frustrated. And I am angry.

三個半月以來，我夜以繼日的在南阿富汗赫爾曼德省(Helmand Province)作戰，對抗攻勢越來越強烈的塔利班血腥進攻。接著，我被召回到喀布爾指揮阿富汗的特種部隊，然而塔利班已經開始進城，一切都太遲了。

我筋疲力竭又挫折，而且感到憤怒。

President Biden said last week that “American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to
fight for themselves.”

It’s true that the Afghan Army lost its will to fight. But that’s because of
the growing sense of abandonment by our American partners and the disrespectand disloyalty reflected in Mr. Biden’s tone and words over the past few
months. The Afghan Army is not without blame. It had its problems — cronyism, bureaucracy — but we ultimately stopped fighting because our partners
already had.

It pains me to see Mr. Biden and Western officials are blaming the Afghan Army for collapsing without mentioning the underlying reasons that happened.
Political divisions in Kabul and Washington strangled the army and limited our ability to do our jobs. Losing combat logistical support that the United
States had provided for years crippled us, as did a lack of clear guidance
from U.S. and Afghan leadership.

拜登總統上周的聲明說：「阿富汗軍隊都不願為自己打的仗，美軍不能也不該打，甚至為此喪生。」

阿富汗軍隊確實喪失戰鬥意志，但這是因為我們被美國夥伴遺棄的感覺越來越強，這反映了拜登先生過去數個月來言詞中的不敬與不忠。阿富汗軍隊固然有自己的責任，它任人唯親又官僚，但我們真正停止戰鬥的原因是因為夥伴已經撒手不管了。

看到拜登先生與西方官員責怪阿富汗軍隊崩潰卻不談論真正的原因，讓我很痛苦。喀布爾與華盛頓的政治分歧扼殺了軍隊，限制了我們執行任務的能力。失去美國多年來提供的後勤支援與阿美高層的明確指引，讓我們陷入癱瘓。

I am a three-star general in the Afghan Army. For 11 months, as commander of
215 Maiwand Corps, I led 15,000 men in combat operations against the Taliban
in southwestern Afghanistan. I’ve lost hundreds of officers and soldiers.
That’s why, as exhausted and frustrated as I am, I wanted to offer a
practical perspective and defend the honor of the Afghan Army. I’m not here
to absolve the Afghan Army of mistakes. But the fact is, many of us fought
valiantly and honorably, only to be let down by American and Afghan leadership.

Two weeks ago, while battling to hold the southern city of Lashkar Gah from
the Taliban, President Ashraf Ghani named me commander of Afghanistan’s
special forces, the country’s most elite fighters. I reluctantly left my
troops and arrived in Kabul on Aug. 15, ready to fight — unaware how bad the
situation already was. Then Mr. Ghani handed me the added task of ensuring the security of Kabul. But I never even had a chance: The Taliban were closing in, and Mr. Ghani fled the country.

There is an enormous sense of betrayal here. Mr. Ghani’s hasty escape ended
efforts to negotiate an interim agreement for a transition period with the
Taliban that would have enabled us to hold the city and help manage
evacuations. Instead, chaos ensued — resulting in the desperate scenes
witnessed at the Kabul airport.

我是一名阿富汗的三星將領。過去十一個月來我是邁萬德215軍團(215 Maiwand Corps)的指揮官，帶領一萬五千人在南阿富汗與塔利班作戰。所以，儘管既疲倦又挫折，我希望在此提供一個親身經歷的觀點來捍衛阿富汗軍隊的榮譽。我無意為阿富汗部隊的問題找開脫，但事實是，我們許多人英勇又光榮的戰鬥，卻被美阿領導層辜負。

兩周前，當塔利班正在進攻南部城市拉什卡爾加(Lashkar Gah)時，加尼總統任命我為阿富汗特種部隊的指揮官，這是我國最精銳的戰士。我在八月十五日不情願地離開我的部隊並抵達喀布爾，我雖然準備戰鬥但卻完全不知道情況已經這麼糟。加尼先生此時給了我保衛喀布爾安全的額外任務，但我根本沒機會執行：塔利班已經來了，而加尼先生則逃離了這個國家。

我感到一種巨大的背叛感。加尼先生倉促的逃難使政權轉移的臨時協議談判付諸流水，這個協議原本可以幫助我們擋住塔利班並處裡撤軍事宜的。現在，隨之而來的混亂導致了喀布爾機場所上演的一幕幕絕望場面。

It was in response to those scenes that Mr. Biden said on Aug. 16 that the
Afghan forces collapsed, “sometimes without trying to fight.” But we fought,
bravely, until the end. We lost 66,000 troops over the past 20 years; that’s one-fifth of our estimated fighting force.

So why did the Afghan military collapse? The answer is threefold.

First, former President Donald Trump’s February 2020 peace deal with the
Taliban in Doha doomed us. It put an expiration date on American interest in
the region. Second, we lost contractor logistics and maintenance support
critical to our combat operations. Third, the corruption endemic in Mr. Ghani’s government that flowed to senior military leadership and long crippled our forces on the ground irreparably hobbled us.

拜登先生在八月十六日回應說阿富汗軍隊已經崩潰「有時甚至沒有戰鬥」。但我們有，我們英勇的戰到最後一刻。過去二十年來我們犧牲了六萬六千名將士，這是我們估計戰力的五分之一。

阿富汗軍隊為何崩潰？答案有三重原因。

首先，前總統川普在2020年二月與塔利班在多哈(Doha)的和平協議毀了我們。他為美軍在阿富汗的利益設定了截止日。
第二，我們失去後勤與維修承包商的支援，這對我們的戰鬥任務至關重要。
第三，加尼政府的腐敗蔓延到了軍事領導層，無法挽回的癱瘓了我們的前線部隊。

The Trump-Taliban agreement shaped the circumstances for the current situation by essentially curtailing offensive combat operations for U.S. and allied
troops. The U.S. air-support rules of engagement for Afghan security forces
effectively changed overnight, and the Taliban were emboldened. They could
sense victory and knew it was just a matter of waiting out the Americans.
Before that deal, the Taliban had not won any significant battles against theAfghan Army. After the agreement? We were losing dozens of soldiers a day.

Still, we kept fighting. But then Mr. Biden confirmed in April he would stickto Mr. Trump’s plan and set the terms for the U.S. drawdown. That was when
everything started to go downhill.

川普與塔利班的協議形塑了當前的環境 ─它實質削減了美國與盟軍的進攻性戰鬥任務。
美國對阿富汗安全部隊的空中支援交戰規則一夕生變，鼓勵塔利班更加大膽。他們現在知道勝利是遲早的，只要等美國人離開就行。協議前，塔利班對阿富汗軍隊未曾贏取任何一場重大戰鬥。協議後呢？我們每天損失數以十計的士兵。

但我們仍持續戰鬥。接著拜登先生在四月證實了他將執行川普先生的計畫，並著手規劃縮減美軍的協議。這就是一切急轉直下的開始。

https://i.imgur.com/7Z3rt2F.jpg

The Afghan forces were trained by the Americans using the U.S. military modelbased on highly technical special reconnaissance units, helicopters and
airstrikes. We lost our superiority to the Taliban when our air support driedup and our ammunition ran out.

Contractors maintained our bombers and our attack and transport aircraft
throughout the war. By July, most of the 17,000 support contractors had left.A technical issue now meant that aircraft — a Black Hawk helicopter, a C-130
transport, a surveillance drone — would be grounded.

The contractors also took proprietary software and weapons systems with them.They physically removed our helicopter missile-defense system. Access to the
software that we relied on to track our vehicles, weapons and personnel also
disappeared. Real-time intelligence on targets went out the window, too.

美國人以美軍模式訓練阿富汗部隊，這基於高科技的特種偵察部隊、直昇機與空襲。當我們的空中支援枯竭與彈藥耗盡，我們就失去了對塔利班的優勢。

我們的轟炸、攻擊與運輸機在整個戰爭期間都由承包商維護。但在七月，一萬七千名支援承包商中的大部分都撤離了，這代表從技術上 ─黑鷹直升機、C-130運輸機與無人偵察機都全面停飛。

承包商還帶走了專用軟體與武器系統，他們實際拆除了我們直升機上的飛彈防禦系統。我們用來追蹤載具、武器與人員的軟體也消失了，目標即時情資亦不復存在。

The Taliban fought with snipers and improvised explosive devices while we lost aerial and laser-guided weapon capacity. And since we could not resupply
bases without helicopter support, soldiers often lacked the necessary tools to fight. The Taliban overran many bases; in other places, entire units
surrendered.

Mr. Biden’s full and accelerated withdrawal only exacerbated the situation.
It ignored conditions on the ground. The Taliban had a firm end date from theAmericans and feared no military reprisal for anything they did in the interim, sensing the lack of U.S. will.

And so the Taliban kept ramping up. My soldiers and I endured up to seven
Taliban car bombings daily throughout July and the first week of August in
Helmand Province. Still, we stood our ground.

塔利班使用狙擊手與IED作戰，而我們卻失去了空中與雷射導引武器的能力。由於失去直升機支援我們無法補給基地，因此我們的士兵經常缺乏戰鬥的必要工具。塔利班確實攻下了許多基地，但更多地方整個單位直接不戰而降。

拜登先生全面且加速的撤軍只加劇局勢，他忽略了實際情況。塔利班現在有了美軍離開的切確日期，可以在這段期間隨心所欲並完全不用擔心任何軍事報復 ─因為他們知道美國
並無此意。

因此，塔利班不斷變強。我的將士們整個七月到八月的第一周，在赫爾曼德省每天都要承受七次塔利班的汽車炸彈攻擊。但我們仍堅守陣地。

I cannot ignore the third factor, though, because there was only so much the
Americans could do when it came to the well-documented corruption that rottedour government and military. That really is our national tragedy. So many of
our leaders — including in the military — were installed for their personal
ties, not for their credentials. These appointments had a devastating impact
on the national army because leaders lacked the military experience to be
effective or inspire the confidence and trust of the men being asked to risk
their lives. Disruptions to food rations and fuel supplies — a result of
skimming and corrupt contract allocations — destroyed the morale of my troops.

儘管如此，我無法忽視第三個因素。當我的政府與軍隊有明證確鑿的貪污與腐敗，美國人能做的事情確實不多。這實在是我們國家的悲劇。有太多領導人 ─包含軍事領袖─ 都是
透過裙帶關係而不是資歷任命。

由於缺乏軍事經驗，他們無法有效激發冒著生命危險的人們對其抱持信心與信任，這對國家軍隊產生了毀滅性的影響。各種剝削與腐敗的撥款配給，導致食物與油料的補給中斷
，摧毀了我們部隊的士氣。

The final days of fighting were surreal. We engaged in intense firefights on
the ground against the Taliban as U.S. fighter jets circled overhead,
effectively spectators. Our sense of abandonment and betrayal was equaled only by the frustration U.S. pilots felt and relayed to us — being forced to
witness the ground war, apparently unable to help us. Overwhelmed by Taliban
fire, my soldiers would hear the planes and ask why they were not providing
air support. Morale was devastated. Across Afghanistan, soldiers stopped
fighting. We held Lashkar Gah in fierce battles, but as the rest of the
country fell, we lacked the support to continue fighting and retreated to base. My corps, which had carried on even after I was called away to Kabul, was
one of the last to give up its arms — only after the capital fell.

戰鬥的最後幾天是超現實的。我們在地面與塔利班激烈交火的同時，美國戰機卻在頭上盤旋，僅作為旁觀者。美國飛行員的挫折感與我們感受到的遺棄與背叛是同等的：他們顯然被禁止介入，而強迫目睹了地面的戰鬥。被塔利班火力淹沒的同時，我的士兵們可以聽見飛機的聲音，他們問為什麼沒有空中支援。

士氣就這樣崩潰，阿富汗各地的士兵都停止了戰鬥。我們在激戰中守住了拉什卡爾加，但隨著鄉村陷落我們失去持續戰鬥的支援，只好撤退回基地。我的軍團甚至在我被召回喀布爾之後繼續戰鬥，他們是最後投降的部隊之一：堅持到了首都淪陷以後。

We were betrayed by politics and presidents.

This was not an Afghan war only; it was an international war, with many
militaries involved. It would have been impossible for one army alone, ours,
to take up the job and fight. This was a military defeat, but it emanated from political failure.

我們被政治與總統們背叛了。

這不僅是一場阿富汗戰爭，這是一場國際戰事。多個國家的軍隊都介入了，這是不可能只靠我們一隻軍隊就接手完成的戰鬥。他確實是一場軍事敗仗，但卻源自於政治上的失敗。

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