华章
By Hua Zhang
乌克兰危机尚在持续发酵，美国又迫不及待地煽动另一场地区冲突。据美国媒体报道，美国空军机动后勤司令部司令迈克·米尼汉日前在一份备忘录中公然宣称，美国将在未来两年内因为台湾问题与中国发生战争。此惊人言论迅速得到了刚刚当上美国众议院外交事务委员会主席的麦考尔的随声附和，其在电视节目中公开表示，米尼汉的观点是对的。
While the Ukraine crisis is still fermenting, the US cannot wait to stir up another regional conflict. Mike Minihan, US Air Mobility Command commander, predicted in a recent memo that Washington will engage in a war with Beijing over the Taiwan question in the next two years. His sensational remarks were soon echoed and affirmed by McCaul, the new chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in a TV program.
此前，美国某些人就曾“预测”中美将在2027年因台湾问题爆发冲突，如今米尼汉之流又将这一臆测的时间点提前到了2025年，可见美国好战分子已迫不及待地想要制造新的冲突乱中取利。
Some Americans already predicted earlier that a conflict will break out between China and the US over the Taiwan question in 2027. Now Mike Minihan and his like have moved the deadline forward to 2025, indicating how eager these war-lusting politicians are to wage new conflicts in order to fish in troubled waters.
曾供职于《纽约时报》并获得过普利策奖的知名媒体人赫奇斯曾一针见血地指出，在国际上挑起战争以缓解国内政治矛盾，正是美国的惯用伎俩。
Chris Hedges, the Pulitzer-winning journalist who used to work for the New York Times, hit the nail on the head by saying that instigating wars in the world to mitigate its own domestic political problems is an old trick played by the US.
令世界大多数国家谈之色变的战争，却是美国精英们的心头好。这主要源于美国特殊的地理位置：远离欧亚大陆上的地缘冲突热点偏安北美，令其可以多次直接或间接参与重大战事捞取实利，却不用担心战火会烧到自家门口。最明显的当属两次世界大战。善观风向的美国不仅都混上了战胜国的身份，而且工业生产和跨国贸易都借助战事实现腾飞，一举成为世界头号强国。
War, a monster that most countries want to avoid, is a darling for American elites. This is mainly because of America’s unique geographical location – located far from the geopolitical hotspots on the Eurasian continent, it has been able to directly or indirectly engage in large-scale wars many times and profited from them without worrying about the war spreading to its doorstep. The two world wars are prime examples. The US, always having a flair for jumping on the right bandwagon, found its way into the winning camp in both wars, and vaulted itself to be the strongest power in the world with its industrial production and foreign trade soaring on the waves of the wars.
在战争中屡占便宜不吃亏，美国精英们自然对打仗乐此不疲，而二战时期兴起军工复合体逐渐把持政权，更让美国成了世界上最穷兵黩武的国家。据不完全统计，从1945年第二次世界大战结束到2001年，世界上153个地区发生了248次武装冲突，其中美国发起的就有201次，约占81%。
American elites are more than happy with the fact that they have taken all the advantages out of the war without ever losing a penny. Especially as the military-industry complex that grew during WWII has gradually gripped power, America has increasingly become the biggest warmonger in the world. Incomplete statistics show that from the end of WWII in 1945 to 2001, there were 248 armed conflicts occurring in 153 regions across the globe, 201 of which, roughly 81% of all, were initiated by the US.
然而，进入新世纪以来，美国的战争套利手法越来越不好用了。美国以反恐、反生化武器为名发动的伊拉克战争，让美军付出了5万人伤亡的代价。美国为发动战争编造的莫须有罪名、绕开联合国单干的霸凌嘴脸，美军在当地滥杀无辜、虐待囚犯的非人野蛮行径，都让美国多年来在中东地区苦心经营的“民主人权捍卫者”形象逐渐崩塌。
But this war-oriented approach has got less effective and popular in the new century. The Iraqi War waged by the US on the excuse of fighting terrorism and biochemical weapons made it pay a hefty price of 50,000 casualties. The false charges it spun for starting the war, its “stop-at-nothing” bullying without UN authorization, and its barbarities of killing the innocent and abusing prisoners in Iraq all rendered the image of a “democracy and human rights defender” that Washington had worked so hard for so long to keep up a pathetic joke.
总部设在卡塔尔首都多哈的阿拉伯政策研究中心曾公布一份民调结果，81%的受访者认为美国的中东政策对地区安全与稳定构成了威胁。而美国以打击“基地组织”为名发动的阿富汗战争，延宕20年耗资甚巨。美军为求尽快脱身，竟然抛下北约盟友和阿富汗政府军仓皇撤退，让美国曾对盟友许下的“安全承诺”迅速贬值。
The Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS) based in Doha, capital of Qatar, published a poll that showed 81% of the correspondents thinking America’s Middle East policy has threatened regional security and stability. The Afghan War that America started in the name of wiping out “al-Qaeda” protracted for 20 years on top of costing an astronomical amount of money. To free itself of this gigantic burden, Washington made an abrupt and hastened withdrawal, leaving its NATO allies and the Afghan government on the line and making its “security commitment” to allies worthless.
如今，美国国内的诸多问题也是无法通过战争解决的。贫富分化严重导致1700万儿童处于饥饿之中、3000多万美国民众没有医保；基础设施老旧落后，全国有43586座桥梁的平均使用年限达到了68 年，亟需数百亿美元资金维修；毒品和枪支泛滥，分别导致每年超过10万人死于药物滥用和4万人死于枪击；种族歧视问题日益严重，“弗洛伊德案”一再上演，仇恨犯罪频发多发，非洲裔和亚裔惶惶不可终日。美国联邦政府债务规模屡次突破红线，一再拉响债务违约、信用评级下调、政府关门警报。
The many domestic problems that are currently plaguing the country cannot be solved through a war either. The country is looking at an astounding rich-poor gap, with 17 million children living in hunger and more than 30 million citizens without medical insurance; infrastructure nationwide is clapped-out, with 43,586 bridges having served 68 years on average and tens of billions of dollars needed for repair and reinforcement; the abuse of drugs and guns leaves over 100,000 people dying of overdose and 40,000 of gunshot every year; and racial discrimination has only worsened, with the “George Floyd” case repeating itself over and over, hate crimes on the rise, and people of African and Asian origin living on tenterhooks. Moreover, the federal government has exceeded its debt cap more than once, constantly sounding the alarm of debt default, credit downgrading and government shutdown.
作为一国政府，理应投入更多精力和资源去解决这些复杂的国内问题。然而，世人看到的却是，美国军费年年上涨，到2023 财年将达到8130 亿美元，不仅高居世界第一，还超过了包括中国和俄罗斯在内的其他九个国家的军费总和。但美国疾控中心和环保署得到的拨款却分别只有100多亿美元，改善国内安全局势的预算也仅有300多亿美元。
Under such circumstances, the government should have spent more energy and invested more resources to solve its complex domestic woes. Yet what we see is America’s military spending rising year by year and on track to reach US$813 billion in the fiscal year of 2023, ranking far on top in the world and well over the combined military expenditure of nine other nations, including China and Russia. In comparison, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have each been allocated a little over US$10 billion, and the budget for improving public security at home is just over US$30 billion.
很明显，那些自诩为民意代言人的美国政客和保卫美利坚的美军将领，早已彻底沦为军火商们的提线木偶。他们鼓吹战争，与其说是为了治美国的“病”，倒不如说是为了满足一己私欲。
Clearly, the American politicians that pride themselves on speaking for the people and generals who claim to defend the country have long been reduced into military conglomerates’ puppets. Their clamoring for war is less to cure America of its ills than to satisfy their own desires and line their pockets.
（作者为中国网评论员）
Editor’s note: The author is a commentator for china.com.cn. This article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.
