【原创翻译】英国该教训一下阿根廷了

作者 Daniel Hannan


'They’ll like us when we win,” says Toby Ziegler in The West Wing. They certainly did 30 years ago. When Argentina’s conscripts were scrambling up the chilly beaches of the Falkland Islands, I was 11 years old and living in Lima. Most South Americans outside Chile took Galtieri’s side, but Peruvians, traditional allies of Argentina, were especially enthusiastic. Blue-and-white tricolours sprouted across the country, news reporters dropped any pretence of impartiality, there were frequent street demonstrations. It was an awkward time to be British.
“我们赢了，他们就会喜欢我们。”《白宫风云》里托比 齐格勒的话。30年前他们就是这个干的。当阿根廷新兵们仓促登上福克兰群岛寒冷的海岸时，我只有11岁，住在利马。除了智利大多数南美国家站在加尔铁里一边，但是秘鲁人作为阿根廷的传统盟友，可是格外热情。蓝白三条旗在这个国家到处发芽，新闻报导已经抛开了哪怕是伪装的公正，街头表威络绎不绝。那对英国人真是一段艰苦时光。
Until, that is, the Union Flag was hauled up over Port Stanley. When the tiny Royal Marines garrison had been overrun, most South Americans thought that a virile New World power was taking over from an elderly and ramshackle imperium. Over the next 10 weeks, Margaret Thatcher showed them that Britain wasn’t finished, that we were prepared, as our fathers had been, to defend our freedoms and our prerogatives.
的确，直到米字旗在斯坦利港空中升起。当皇家海军陆战队的少量守军被击败时，大多数南美人认为一个充满阳刚气的新世界霸权要取代那个陈旧的摇摇欲坠的统治权。在接下来的十周里，玛格丽特 撒切尔教训了他们，英国还没完蛋，我们已经像我们的父辈那样准备好了保卫我们的自由和特权。
The change in mood was immediate and palpable. We British were again said to be “personas muy serias”: responsible people, respectable people, gentlemen. One television channel ran a feature on whether it would have been better for Peru to have been colonised by England. In the studio audience, only one old lady stuck up for the conquistadores, whom she thanked for bringing the Catholic faith; all the others plumped for Drake.
气氛的变化既快又明显。我们英国人再次被称作“严肃的人民”：负责任的人民、可敬佩的人民、绅士。一个电视台播出一个特辑来讨论如果秘鲁曾经被英国殖民是否会更好。在观众里面只有一个老太太支持征服者（注：西班牙人），她感谢他们带来了天主教；其他所有人则支持德雷克（注：发现合恩角的英国探险家）。
My point is that prestige is a real and quantifiable commodity. If properly harboured, it can spare a nation from having to spill blood in defence of its interests. As Britain’s standing rose in the aftermath of our victory, relations with Buenos Aires improved. Although Argentina’s democratic rulers never formally dropped their claim, they were determined not to allow it to prejudice their dealings with the United Kingdom. The possibility of mineral wealth in Falklands territorial waters promised a windfall to Argentina, the nearest land mass and likely onshore refinery. By the Nineties, British and Argentine troops were being deployed side by side in Cyprus.
我的观点是，威望是实实在在并可以计量的财富。只要处置得当，它可以避免一个国家用流血来保卫它的利益。当英国借着胜利的余威上升时，和布宜诺斯艾利斯的关系也在发展。尽管阿根廷的民选领导人们从来没有正式地放弃他们的目标，他们却决定在与英国打交道时不受这事影响。福克兰群岛领海里可能存在的矿藏给阿根廷许诺了一笔横财：近在咫尺的土地以及可能的岸上炼油厂。在九十年代，英国和阿根廷士兵曾经在塞浦路斯肩并肩行动。
Then came the banking collapse, which, as so often happens, precipitated a retreat from liberal democracy (eurozone be warned). Argentina’s current president, the Peronist Cristina Kirchner, represents a strain of bellicose Left-wing nationalism that is currently in the ascendant all over South America.
接着就是银行业崩溃，就像以前发生过的那样，带来了自由民主的倒退（欧元区要注意）。阿根廷现任总统，贝隆主义者，克里斯蒂娜 基什内尔，代表了现在统治整个南美的好斗的左翼民族主义的一个品种。
Across the continent, voters have wearied of multi-party rule and opted for authoritarian demagogues. It would be going too far to call these caudillos anti-democratic, since most of them were fairly elected and continue to enjoy majority support. But, once in power, they set about removing any constraints on their authority, packing their electoral commissions and supreme courts, harassing opposition leaders, closing down hostile media.
在整个南美大陆，选举者们已经厌倦了多党制而选择独裁式的煽动者。说这些考迪罗是独裁者可能有些过了，毕竟他们是公平选举的而且依然享有多数人的支持。但是，一旦拥有权力，他们就着手消除对他们统治的任何限制：把选举委员会和最高法院打包带走，折磨反对派领导者，关闭不合作的媒体。
In order to maintain themselves in power, they have to keep picking fights: with the United States, with the World Bank, with the IMF and, when all else fails, with each other. Mrs Kirchner has thus had little difficulty in gaining regional support for her revanchism. Here, for example, is Venezuela’s baleful strongman, Hugo Chávez: “The English are still threatening Argentina. Things have changed. We are no longer in 1982. If conflict breaks out, be certain Argentina will not be alone, as it was back then.”
为了保住自身的权力，他们必须不停地挑起争斗：与美国、与世界银行、与国际货币基金组织，如果这些都失败了，他们就互相打斗。基什内尔夫人为了获取对她的复仇主义的支持，做法跟这些人没有两样。举个例子，就像委内瑞拉的恶毒强人，雨果 查韦斯：“英国人仍然在威胁阿根廷。情况不同了。我们不是在1982年。如果冲突爆发，可以确定阿根廷不会像以前那样是孤独的。”
His sentiments are echoed around the region. Even Uruguay, carefully neutral in 1982, and a beneficiary since of the Falklands-bound shipping that has passed through its ports, has announced, along with Brazil, that it is closing its coastline to Falklands-flagged vessels.
他的观点在整个地区得到了回应。即使是乌拉圭，曾在1982年小心地中立，并且因为福克兰相关的航运在它的港口通行而获利，也同巴西一起发出了声明，称它将对悬挂福克兰旗帜的船只关闭海岸线。
More significant than the attitude of neighbouring countries, though, is that of Washington. In 1982, Ronald Reagan stuck by his friends. Caspar Weinberger, the defence secretary, recalled in his memoirs being instructed by his president to make available any materiel the British wanted without delay.
比这些邻近国家更重要的是华盛顿的态度。在1982年，罗纳德 里根忠于他的朋友。加斯帕尔 维恩伯格，时任国防部长，在他的回忆录里回忆总统指示，要提供英国期望的任何可能的援助，不得延迟。
Where the Gipper saw an English-speaking democracy threatened by a neighbouring dictatorship, Barack Obama, who is obsessed by his father’s Fifties anti-colonialism, sees a leftover from an empire whose memory he detests. His administration has backed Argentina’s demand for talks on sovereignty, and has taken to calling the islands by their Argentine name, Las Malvinas.
基佩尔看到的是英语民主国家被邻近独裁者威胁，在巴拉克 奥巴马----深受他父亲的反殖民主义影响----看到的却是他所憎恶的帝国的残喘。他的政府已经支持阿根廷展开主权谈判的要求，并且已经开始把这些岛屿称作“马尔维纳斯”，它们的阿根廷名字。
This, in short, is a dangerous moment to be making cuts to the Royal Navy. We now know that the withdrawal of HMS Endurance from the South Atlantic tempted Galtieri to think that an invasion would not be contested. In theory, of course, it would no longer be necessary to recapture the islands, since we have sufficient forces there to defend them. Still, warfare is as much about willpower as weaponry. You can be certain that Argentine military chiefs noted our wretched pusillanimity when personnel from HMS Cornwall were seized by Iranian forces five years ago. Prestige, as I say, matters.
总之，现在不是削减海军预算的好时候。我们现在都知道忍耐号从南大西洋的撤退诱使加尔铁里认为入侵不会遇到争议。当然，理论上没有必要再去重新占领这个群岛，因为我们已经具备足够的兵力去抵御他们。然而，战争不仅靠武器也看决心。你能确信阿根廷军队领导会注意到，五年前当康沃尔号上的人员被伊朗抓捕时我们那可怜的软弱。威望，像我说的，很重要。
There are, of course, some Foreign Office officials who would love to be shot of the whole territory, and dream of negotiating some form of joint suzerainty with Buenos Aires. While their view has little support beyond the editorial page of the Daily Mirror, it is dangerous none the less. It was precisely such equivocation that encouraged the junta 30 years ago.
当然，有些外交部官员可能想破坏领土完整，梦想去跟布宜诺斯艾利斯谈什么共同主权。虽然他们的观点在镜报社论版以外得不到什么支持，但它仍然是危险的。它恰恰就是30年前鼓励了军人团体的那种含糊其辞的调调。
To this day, many Argentines are convinced that Britain deliberately led them on to the punch. The whole war, they will tell you, was got up by Margaret Thatcher to ensure her re‑election. The idea that we would cross half the world for the sake of 2,000 poor farmers on a windswept outcrop seemed inconceivable.
到今天，很多阿根廷人确信是英国蓄意发动了对他们的打击。他们会告诉你，玛格丽特 撒切尔为了确保重选成功而发动了整个战争。
我们越过半个世界只为了生活在风化裸露岩层上的2000名可怜的农夫，看上去不是可信的说法。
Argentina badly misread our character. We must leave them in no doubt that we are still the people we were.
阿根廷严重地误解了我们的特性。我们必须让他们明白无误，我们还是原来那样。


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/8973147/Once-again-Britain-must-show-Argentina-that-it-is-a-serious-nation.html

作者 Daniel Hannan


'They’ll like us when we win,” says Toby Ziegler in The West Wing. They certainly did 30 years ago. When Argentina’s conscripts were scrambling up the chilly beaches of the Falkland Islands, I was 11 years old and living in Lima. Most South Americans outside Chile took Galtieri’s side, but Peruvians, traditional allies of Argentina, were especially enthusiastic. Blue-and-white tricolours sprouted across the country, news reporters dropped any pretence of impartiality, there were frequent street demonstrations. It was an awkward time to be British.
“我们赢了，他们就会喜欢我们。”《白宫风云》里托比 齐格勒的话。30年前他们就是这个干的。当阿根廷新兵们仓促登上福克兰群岛寒冷的海岸时，我只有11岁，住在利马。除了智利大多数南美国家站在加尔铁里一边，但是秘鲁人作为阿根廷的传统盟友，可是格外热情。蓝白三条旗在这个国家到处发芽，新闻报导已经抛开了哪怕是伪装的公正，街头表威络绎不绝。那对英国人真是一段艰苦时光。
Until, that is, the Union Flag was hauled up over Port Stanley. When the tiny Royal Marines garrison had been overrun, most South Americans thought that a virile New World power was taking over from an elderly and ramshackle imperium. Over the next 10 weeks, Margaret Thatcher showed them that Britain wasn’t finished, that we were prepared, as our fathers had been, to defend our freedoms and our prerogatives.
的确，直到米字旗在斯坦利港空中升起。当皇家海军陆战队的少量守军被击败时，大多数南美人认为一个充满阳刚气的新世界霸权要取代那个陈旧的摇摇欲坠的统治权。在接下来的十周里，玛格丽特 撒切尔教训了他们，英国还没完蛋，我们已经像我们的父辈那样准备好了保卫我们的自由和特权。
The change in mood was immediate and palpable. We British were again said to be “personas muy serias”: responsible people, respectable people, gentlemen. One television channel ran a feature on whether it would have been better for Peru to have been colonised by England. In the studio audience, only one old lady stuck up for the conquistadores, whom she thanked for bringing the Catholic faith; all the others plumped for Drake.
气氛的变化既快又明显。我们英国人再次被称作“严肃的人民”：负责任的人民、可敬佩的人民、绅士。一个电视台播出一个特辑来讨论如果秘鲁曾经被英国殖民是否会更好。在观众里面只有一个老太太支持征服者（注：西班牙人），她感谢他们带来了天主教；其他所有人则支持德雷克（注：发现合恩角的英国探险家）。
My point is that prestige is a real and quantifiable commodity. If properly harboured, it can spare a nation from having to spill blood in defence of its interests. As Britain’s standing rose in the aftermath of our victory, relations with Buenos Aires improved. Although Argentina’s democratic rulers never formally dropped their claim, they were determined not to allow it to prejudice their dealings with the United Kingdom. The possibility of mineral wealth in Falklands territorial waters promised a windfall to Argentina, the nearest land mass and likely onshore refinery. By the Nineties, British and Argentine troops were being deployed side by side in Cyprus.
我的观点是，威望是实实在在并可以计量的财富。只要处置得当，它可以避免一个国家用流血来保卫它的利益。当英国借着胜利的余威上升时，和布宜诺斯艾利斯的关系也在发展。尽管阿根廷的民选领导人们从来没有正式地放弃他们的目标，他们却决定在与英国打交道时不受这事影响。福克兰群岛领海里可能存在的矿藏给阿根廷许诺了一笔横财：近在咫尺的土地以及可能的岸上炼油厂。在九十年代，英国和阿根廷士兵曾经在塞浦路斯肩并肩行动。
Then came the banking collapse, which, as so often happens, precipitated a retreat from liberal democracy (eurozone be warned). Argentina’s current president, the Peronist Cristina Kirchner, represents a strain of bellicose Left-wing nationalism that is currently in the ascendant all over South America.
接着就是银行业崩溃，就像以前发生过的那样，带来了自由民主的倒退（欧元区要注意）。阿根廷现任总统，贝隆主义者，克里斯蒂娜 基什内尔，代表了现在统治整个南美的好斗的左翼民族主义的一个品种。
Across the continent, voters have wearied of multi-party rule and opted for authoritarian demagogues. It would be going too far to call these caudillos anti-democratic, since most of them were fairly elected and continue to enjoy majority support. But, once in power, they set about removing any constraints on their authority, packing their electoral commissions and supreme courts, harassing opposition leaders, closing down hostile media.
在整个南美大陆，选举者们已经厌倦了多党制而选择独裁式的煽动者。说这些考迪罗是独裁者可能有些过了，毕竟他们是公平选举的而且依然享有多数人的支持。但是，一旦拥有权力，他们就着手消除对他们统治的任何限制：把选举委员会和最高法院打包带走，折磨反对派领导者，关闭不合作的媒体。
In order to maintain themselves in power, they have to keep picking fights: with the United States, with the World Bank, with the IMF and, when all else fails, with each other. Mrs Kirchner has thus had little difficulty in gaining regional support for her revanchism. Here, for example, is Venezuela’s baleful strongman, Hugo Chávez: “The English are still threatening Argentina. Things have changed. We are no longer in 1982. If conflict breaks out, be certain Argentina will not be alone, as it was back then.”
为了保住自身的权力，他们必须不停地挑起争斗：与美国、与世界银行、与国际货币基金组织，如果这些都失败了，他们就互相打斗。基什内尔夫人为了获取对她的复仇主义的支持，做法跟这些人没有两样。举个例子，就像委内瑞拉的恶毒强人，雨果 查韦斯：“英国人仍然在威胁阿根廷。情况不同了。我们不是在1982年。如果冲突爆发，可以确定阿根廷不会像以前那样是孤独的。”
His sentiments are echoed around the region. Even Uruguay, carefully neutral in 1982, and a beneficiary since of the Falklands-bound shipping that has passed through its ports, has announced, along with Brazil, that it is closing its coastline to Falklands-flagged vessels.
他的观点在整个地区得到了回应。即使是乌拉圭，曾在1982年小心地中立，并且因为福克兰相关的航运在它的港口通行而获利，也同巴西一起发出了声明，称它将对悬挂福克兰旗帜的船只关闭海岸线。
More significant than the attitude of neighbouring countries, though, is that of Washington. In 1982, Ronald Reagan stuck by his friends. Caspar Weinberger, the defence secretary, recalled in his memoirs being instructed by his president to make available any materiel the British wanted without delay.
比这些邻近国家更重要的是华盛顿的态度。在1982年，罗纳德 里根忠于他的朋友。加斯帕尔 维恩伯格，时任国防部长，在他的回忆录里回忆总统指示，要提供英国期望的任何可能的援助，不得延迟。
Where the Gipper saw an English-speaking democracy threatened by a neighbouring dictatorship, Barack Obama, who is obsessed by his father’s Fifties anti-colonialism, sees a leftover from an empire whose memory he detests. His administration has backed Argentina’s demand for talks on sovereignty, and has taken to calling the islands by their Argentine name, Las Malvinas.
基佩尔看到的是英语民主国家被邻近独裁者威胁，在巴拉克 奥巴马----深受他父亲的反殖民主义影响----看到的却是他所憎恶的帝国的残喘。他的政府已经支持阿根廷展开主权谈判的要求，并且已经开始把这些岛屿称作“马尔维纳斯”，它们的阿根廷名字。
This, in short, is a dangerous moment to be making cuts to the Royal Navy. We now know that the withdrawal of HMS Endurance from the South Atlantic tempted Galtieri to think that an invasion would not be contested. In theory, of course, it would no longer be necessary to recapture the islands, since we have sufficient forces there to defend them. Still, warfare is as much about willpower as weaponry. You can be certain that Argentine military chiefs noted our wretched pusillanimity when personnel from HMS Cornwall were seized by Iranian forces five years ago. Prestige, as I say, matters.
总之，现在不是削减海军预算的好时候。我们现在都知道忍耐号从南大西洋的撤退诱使加尔铁里认为入侵不会遇到争议。当然，理论上没有必要再去重新占领这个群岛，因为我们已经具备足够的兵力去抵御他们。然而，战争不仅靠武器也看决心。你能确信阿根廷军队领导会注意到，五年前当康沃尔号上的人员被伊朗抓捕时我们那可怜的软弱。威望，像我说的，很重要。
There are, of course, some Foreign Office officials who would love to be shot of the whole territory, and dream of negotiating some form of joint suzerainty with Buenos Aires. While their view has little support beyond the editorial page of the Daily Mirror, it is dangerous none the less. It was precisely such equivocation that encouraged the junta 30 years ago.
当然，有些外交部官员可能想破坏领土完整，梦想去跟布宜诺斯艾利斯谈什么共同主权。虽然他们的观点在镜报社论版以外得不到什么支持，但它仍然是危险的。它恰恰就是30年前鼓励了军人团体的那种含糊其辞的调调。
To this day, many Argentines are convinced that Britain deliberately led them on to the punch. The whole war, they will tell you, was got up by Margaret Thatcher to ensure her re‑election. The idea that we would cross half the world for the sake of 2,000 poor farmers on a windswept outcrop seemed inconceivable.
到今天，很多阿根廷人确信是英国蓄意发动了对他们的打击。他们会告诉你，玛格丽特 撒切尔为了确保重选成功而发动了整个战争。
我们越过半个世界只为了生活在风化裸露岩层上的2000名可怜的农夫，看上去不是可信的说法。
Argentina badly misread our character. We must leave them in no doubt that we are still the people we were.
阿根廷严重地误解了我们的特性。我们必须让他们明白无误，我们还是原来那样。


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/8973147/Once-again-Britain-must-show-Argentina-that-it-is-a-serious-nation.html