テロ後１０年の米国―武力超え、協調の大国へ

2011/09/11
--The Asahi Shimbun, Sept. 10
EDITORIAL: U.S. should lead efforts toward global cooperation
テロ後１０年の米国―武力超え、協調の大国へ

How long will the war against terrorism, which no one is going to win, last?
　誰も勝者になれない戦争は、いつまで続くのか。

Just a decade has passed since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks at the heart of the United States.
　米国の中枢が襲われた同時多発テロから１０年。

The war against terrorism was launched by former U.S. President George W. Bush, who urged countries to join the fight saying, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."
But the United States has suffered as much damage from the war as it did from the Vietnam War.
対テロ戦争はブッシュ前大統領が「米国と共にあるか、テロリストと一緒になるかだ」と始めたが、いまや米国はベトナム戦争に匹敵する大きな痛手を受けている。

U.S. forces have succeeded in killing Osama bin Laden, the founder of the al-Qaida terrorist group and the mastermind of the 2001 attacks, but the Americans are clearly feeling the pinch of the deteriorating economic health of their country, where jobless rates are hovering above 9 percent.
テロの首謀者オサマ・ビンラディン容疑者は殺害したものの、９％を超える失業率が続く米国には重い疲労感が漂う。

■危うい超大国の座

American people are apparently disturbed, caught between anxiety about the possibility that their country may lose the status as the leading superpower and the desperate feeling that they cannot stand any additional burden.
　「超大国の座を滑り落ちる」という不安と、「これ以上の負担に耐えられない」という悲鳴のはざまで、米国民の心も揺れている。

In a corner of the Arlington National Cemetery, a military cemetery stretched over a hill in the Washington suburbs, are rows of small signs bearing a name placed on the earth with the grass removed.
　首都ワシントン郊外の丘に広がる国立アーリントン墓地の一角。芝生を削った土の上に、名前が刻まれた目印が置かれている。

They are meant to be the graves of soldiers who have died in Afghanistan.
アフガニスタンで戦死した兵士の墓の予定地だ。

Nobody knows how many more white headstones will be laid in this corner of the cemetery.
白い墓石が今後どこまで並ぶのか、まだ誰も分からない。

Since the war on terror started, more than 6,000 U.S. military personnel have died and more than 550,000 have been injured.
　開戦以来、米兵は６千人以上が戦死した。負傷者は５５万人を超える。

One estimate has put the total cost of the war, including medical expenses for injured servicemen and women, at $4 trillion (309 trillion yen).
負傷兵の医療費などを含む戦費全体で４兆ドル（３０９兆円）に達するという試算もある。

The quagmire of the war is hurting American society like a body blow.
泥沼化する戦争は、米社会をボディーブローのようにむしばんでいる。

The U.S. economy, which for a while enjoyed a boom driven by financial bubbles, has taken a downturn since the collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers in 2008.
　金融バブルに踊った経済も、リーマン・ショック以後は大きく傾いた。

The U.S. budget deficit for fiscal 2011, which ends on Sept. 30, is reaching $1.3 trillion. The towering budget deficit has prompted a U.S. credit rating agency to downgrade long-term federal debt, which has long been considered the safest investment, bringing humiliation to the world's largest economy.
１１会計年度の財政赤字は１兆３千億ドル（１００兆円）に達し、信用の象徴だった米国債が格下げされる屈辱も味わった。

President Barack Obama has acknowledged that the United States has been on an unsustainable spending spree. "For a decade, we have been spending more money than we take in," he recently said.
「この１０年間、われわれは歳入以上に支出してきた」とオバマ大統領も認める。

But even more lives have been lost in countries where the United States has been fighting the war.

Some 125,000 civilians in Iraq, 11,700 in Afghanistan and 35,600 in Pakistan have been killed during the war, according to estimates by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University.
　米国の行動によって戦場にされた国では、もっと多くの命が失われた。米ブラウン大学ワトソン研究所の推計では、イラクの民間人は１２万５千人、アフガニスタンでは１万１７００人、パキスタンでも３万５６００人にのぼる。

In Iraq, years of failed occupation, plagued by an endless series of missteps and bad judgments, resulted in bloody nationwide sectarian strife.
　イラクでは誤算続きの占領政策の末、全土で血で血を洗う宗派争いをもたらした。

Amid continued conflict among various religious sects, Obama has promised to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of this year. Given the chaotic state of the war-torn country, however, many observers say it will be impossible to pull out all the U.S. troops by the deadline.
各派が対立する中、オバマ大統領は「今年末までの米軍撤退」と公約したが、混乱を考えると完全な撤退は無理とみられる。

■失われた多くの命

Meanwhile in Afghanistan, 66 American soldiers were killed in August, the worst ever monthly death toll among U.S. military personnel in the country.
　アフガニスタンでも、この８月に６６人と過去最悪の米兵の犠牲者を出した。

Obama has said 33,000 U.S. troops will leave the country by next summer, but the outlook for the U.S. strategy for dealing with the situation after the withdrawal remains murky.
来夏までに３万３千人を撤退させる方針だが、その後の見通しは立たない。

Many American citizens appear to be finding it hard to come up with a good reason for continuing the fight without a clear outlook.
このまま戦闘を続ける意味を、米国民も見いだせなくなっているのではないか。

Outside the Unites States, indiscriminate terrorist attacks have also taken place in cities like Madrid and London. 　米国の外にも、マドリード、ロンドンなどに無差別テロは拡散した。

The scope of targets for terrorist attacks has widened. At the end of August, for instance, a car bomb attack on the United Nations building in Nigeria killed more than 20 people.
テロの標的も広がり、８月末にはナイジェリアの国連ビルに爆弾を載せた車が突っ込んで２０人を超す犠牲者が出た。

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack, saying in a grievous statement that it was "an assault on those who devote their lives to helping others."
国連の潘基文（パン・ギムン）事務総長は「人助けのために人生をささげた人々に対する襲撃だ」と悲痛な声明を出した。

In his historic speech delivered in 2009 in Cairo, Obama proposed reconciliation with the Muslim world for "a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world," raising renewed hope for peace.
　オバマ氏はカイロでの演説で「イスラム世界との和解」を提唱して期待を集めた。

But in countries like Yemen and Pakistan, the United States is expanding its strikes against terrorists using unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, instead of ground troops.
だが、地上部隊にかわる無人機での攻撃はイエメンやパキスタンなどで拡大している。

The Obama administration has postponed the promised closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, where abuses of detainees have been disclosed.
虐待が明らかになったグアンタナモ収容所も、閉鎖を先送りしたままだ。

The Obama administration also initially failed to express its clear support to the revolutionary waves of demonstrations and protests that have led to the collapse of dictatorial regimes in some Arab countries including Tunisia and Egypt, now known as the "Arab Spring."
　チュニジア、エジプトなどで民衆が強権政治を倒した「アラブの春」でも、米国ははじめ、運動を支持することができなかった。

That's because the administration was concerned about a possible rise of Muslim extremists and about possible negative effects on Washington's relations with the autocratic governments of its allies in the region, like Saudi Arabia.
イスラム過激派の台頭を恐れ、独裁だが友好関係にあるサウジアラビアなどに配慮したからだ。

Now that people in many Arab countries have embarked on a path to democracy by risking their lives, however, the United States should take steps to settle the dark past and build new relations with these countries.
　アラブの民衆が流血の犠牲を払って改革に踏み出したいま、米国も暗い過去を清算して、新たな関係を築かなければならない。

In particular, it is essential for Washington to tackle the Palestine issue, which is at the root of conflict in the Arab world.
とくに、アラブ世界の紛争の根源にあるパレスチナ問題に取り組むことが必須だ。

As long as the United States keeps avoiding this challenge, anti-U.S. extremists will continue to come into being.
　その困難を避ける限り、今後も反米過激派が生まれてくる。

The Americans should not forget that Osama bin Laden personified the deep antipathy aroused among Muslims by the U.S. military presence in the "holy land" of Islam.
ビンラディン容疑者も「イスラムの聖地」に米軍が駐留したことへの反感が生んだ鬼子だったことを忘れてはならない。

America's unilateralism also strained its ties with its key allies.
　米国の単独行動主義は、同盟国との関係もゆがめた。

Japan, under the government of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, supported the U.S. war in Iraq and sent Self-Defense Forces troops to the country.
日本は小泉首相がイラク戦争を支持して自衛隊を送った。

But Japan's decision to support a war without cause, made under strong pressure from Washington, deeply damaged the bilateral relations.
だが大義なき戦争に同調したことは、日米関係を深いところで傷つけた。

Japanese sympathy with the United States as the leading standard-bearer for democracy wore thin, while the Japanese government's action provoked criticism among Japanese people that it was blindly following in the footsteps of the United States.
　民主主義の旗手としての米国への共感はすっかり薄れ、「米国追随」という反発を日本国内に呼んだ。

The past 10 years, in which the United States became overconfident of its power and tried to impose its values on the world, has been a decade of failure for the superpower.
　米国が力を過信し、その価値観を世界に押しつけようとした１０年は失敗に終わった。

The United States will remain a country with overwhelming power, but it still needs to find a new role for itself as a member of the global community.
米国は今後も突出した大国だが、世界の一員として新たな役割を見いださなければならない。

Sick and tired of the endless war against terrorism, some Americans are arguing that their country should now wash its hands of intervention in affairs in other parts of the world.
　対テロ戦争に疲れた米国内には、対外的な負担から手を引くべきだという声も出ている。

It would be good for the United States to respect the unique conditions in other countries and seek cooperative ties with them.
米国が各国の事情を認めて協調することは望ましい。

■重い役割変わらず

But if such a superpower becomes indifferent to stability and movements toward democracy in the outside world, the entire world may fall into serious confusion.
　だが、大国が自分の地域以外の安定や民主化を求める動きに無関心になれば、世界は混乱しかねない。

The United States should not abandon its efforts to establish a stable and peaceful world order.
安定した秩序の軸を失ってはいけない。

What the United States should do in the next decade is to seek serious dialogue with people living with different values in order to create a world without terrorism, instead of trying to stamp out terrorism with war.
　戦争で抑え込むのではなく、価値観が異なる世界に住む人々とも真剣に対話して、テロがない世界の実現を目指す。それが米国のこれからとるべき道だ。