经济学人下载:扼杀了他的梦想

Mr bin Laden matters because he swept up a ragbag of local grievances into a brand of intoxicating and violent jihad with worldwide pretensions. His vision, however impractical, of purging Islam and establishing a single Islamic caliphate appealed to Muslims disgusted by the venality of their own elites. His means of bringing it about embraced an orgy of murder and martyrdom partly directed against the “Crusader” West, particularly America. Sad to say, that also appealed to many Muslims for a while. And the whole package was decked with the riches-to-rags story of Mr bin Laden himself—a man who had given up power and wealth in Saudi Arabia, lived simply and seemed almost charmed in his capacity to defy the mightiest army in history (see Obituary).

本拉登是重要的。他把人们的不满都打包成袋，贴着令人兴奋的圣战的标签，曾获得人们的广泛支持。然而，他的远见是不切实际的。他肃清伊斯兰，建立单一的伊斯兰王权，这些让那些贪污成性的领导高层们反感。他对西方的改革作对——尤其是美国，其中给人们带来了狂乱的杀戮和牺牲者。很遗憾地说，这在短时间内吸引了很多穆斯林。这个袋子裹着本拉登的传奇，他由富变穷，他朴素地的生活，似乎他的魅力仅仅在于能够跟世界上最强大的军事力量作对，而现在他留下了在沙特阿拉伯的权利和财富，撒手归西。

Terrorists dream of setting the agenda, and in two ways Mr bin Laden succeeded beyond imagination. For many people, especially non-Muslims, the central place he reserved for violence tainted the whole of Islam. Even as Westerners came to fear bloodthirsty and barbaric Muslims, Muslims deplored degenerate and imperialist Christians. Mr bin Laden’s brand of hatred thrived on both those grotesque stereotypes.

从两个方面看来，本拉登超乎想象地达成了基地组织的目标。对于很多人，尤其是非穆斯林人，本拉登为恐怖活动而保留的中心地区使整个伊斯兰都受到了影响。即使西方人忧虑野蛮嗜杀的穆斯林人，穆斯林谴责堕落的帝国主义基督徒。本拉登的憎恨以奇怪的方式膨胀。

And by framing the fight as a clash of civilizations, he could draw the West into a global war on terror. The attacks of September 11th 2001 tipped America and the West into a fight that exacted a terrible price in blood and treasure. At home, America has diverted vast resources into a security bureaucracy. Abroad, it has been distracted from the historic challenge that American power faces in Asia.

号称是文明的冲突的原因，本拉登把西方国家拉入世界恐怖活动之中。2001年“911”的袭击将美国和西方拉进斗争，使美国人付出血和财富的恐怖的代价。在国内，美国在安全局投入大量财力。在国外，分散了美国挑战亚洲地区的力量。

Along the way, America has compromised the values that are its greatest strength. This was partly by accident, because war is always cruel and messy, but also by design, through the torture of jihadist detainees and the oblivion of Guantanamo. It is not yet clear whether finding Mr bin Laden depended on torture (it probably never will be clear, given that the interrogator’s lead identifying Mr bin Laden’s courier took years to bear fruit). What is certain is that his message prospered because he could dismiss America’s commitment to freedom and human rights and claim that the country abused Muslims.

一直以来，美国把价值观作为自己最大的优势。这也许是偶然，因为战争总是残忍和肮脏的。但这也是有意的，美国拷打圣战囚徒，漠视关塔那摩监狱。现在尚未明晰的是找到本拉登是否是拷问的结果（这也许永远不会明晰，考虑到审讯本拉登的人员需要多年的时间才问出结果）。可以肯定的是，本拉登的情报很成功，他散布的情报声称，美国虐待穆斯林，这使得美国的表现与他们对自由和人权承诺自相矛盾。

That message is potent enough to survive Mr bin Laden’s death. Stuck in his compound, without a telephone or the internet, he had anyway become a remote figure. The al-Qaeda franchise, spread across the Sahel, in the Arabian Peninsula and in cells around the world, will surely now seek to prove its potency. The hope is that the computers, discs and drives American special forces seized during their raid will wreck such plans. Terrorism being what it is, though, an attack sooner or later has every
chance of succeeding.

这个情报足以让本拉登活命。他藏自己的院子里，没有电话，也上不了网。总之，他成了一个疏远主流的人物。基地组织的力量遍布撒赫尔和阿拉伯半岛，还有世界上的某些小房间里。现在，这些力量力求表现他们的能力。现在只希望电脑、磁盘和驱动这些特殊的力量能在他们的袭击中能破坏这些计划。恐怖主义的袭击，迟早都会得手。