“It seemed like they were belatedly meeting the concerns we were raising,” McCoy later told me. [qh]
麦考伊后来告诉我:“他们似乎迟迟才满足我们提出的关切
But nothing happened until July 30, when one charter flight brought 221 SIV holders and family members to Fort Lee, outside Richmond, Virginia.[qh]
但一切都没有发生, 直到7月30日,一架包机将221名特殊移民签证(SIV)持有者及其家人带到弗吉尼亚州里士满郊外的李堡
These were Afghans whose visas had already been approved; the U.S. government was simply accelerating their arrival.[qh]
这些人是阿富汗人,他们的签证已经获得批准; 美国政府只是让他们的到来加速了
McCoy began to think that Operation Allies Refuge was a “performative stunt,” intended to convince ordinary voters in, say, Michigan and Pennsylvania who might have seen something on TV about endangered Afghans that the administration had it covered.[qh]
麦考伊开始认为,“盟军庇护行动”是一场“表演噱头”,目的是说服密歇根州和宾夕法尼亚州的普通选民,这些选民可能在电视上看到了政府报道的关于阿富汗人面临危险的内容
After the military’s lightning withdrawal, the embassy was still moving at the pace of a mission with months to go.[qh]
在军方闪电撤离后,大使馆仍在以任务还有几个月要完成的速度前进
“From our perspective, the State Department was relying on a lot of hope that things weren’t going to fall apart in the face of increasingly bleak intelligence reports on a daily basis,”[qh]
“从我们的角度来看,国务院寄予了很大的希望,希望事情不会因为每天越来越惨淡的情报报告而分崩离析,”[qh]
a soldier who remained in Afghanistan throughout the summer told me. [qh]
一名整个夏天都留在阿富汗的士兵告诉我
“The military was just waiting for a decision point or guidance from the State Department, and it never came until things fell apart.”[qh]
“军方只是在等待美国国务院的决定或指导,直到事情搞砸了,决定才出来
On August 2, the administration finally announced a priority refugee program, which it had been discussing since the spring, for several categories of vulnerable Afghans who didn’t qualify for SIVs. [qh]
8月2日,美国政府终于宣布了一项优先难民计划,该计划自春季以来一直在讨论,对象是几类不符合特殊移民签证(SIV)资格的阿富汗弱势群体
But no Afghan could use the program—it existed only on paper, because there was no infrastructure for processing refugees in the neighboring countries to which they might flee.[qh]
但是没有一个阿富汗人可以使用这个项目——它仅仅存在于纸面上,因为在邻国没有处理难民的基础设施,而这些难民可能会逃往那里
More relocation flights brought more interested and eligible SIV families to the U.S.; by mid-August the total was just under 2,000 people. [qh]
更多的转移航班将更多有意向和符合特殊移民签证条件的家庭带到美国; 到8月中旬,死亡人数已接近2000人
The administration continued to explore all options and plan for every contingency. [qh]
美国政府继续探索所有的选择和计划,以应对每一种意外情况
Major cities across Afghanistan fell to the Taliban. [qh]
阿富汗的主要城市被塔利班占领
The Atrocity Early Warning Task Force finished its assessment on potential massacres and was about to start planning for ways to prevent them. [qh]
暴行预警特遣部队完成了对可能发生的屠杀的评估,正准备开始计划防止屠杀事件发生的方法
An official who worked on the assessment later told me, “It was finalized the week before everything blew up.”[qh]
一位负责评估工作的官员后来告诉我,“在一切都变糟的前一周,计划就已经做完了
When Hawa, the Afghan special-forces lieutenant, learned from the media that her U.S. counterparts were about to leave Bagram Air Base, she was stunned. [qh]
当阿富汗特种部队中尉哈瓦从媒体得知美国同事即将离开巴格拉姆空军基地时,她惊呆了
“Really?” she asked the American women on the base.[qh]
“真的吗? 她询问基地里的美国女性
The Americans apologized—they hadn’t believed it would happen either. [qh]
美国人道歉了——他们也不相信会发生这种事
To Hawa the Americans were still needed, and the future looked dire without them.[qh]
对哈瓦来说,仍然需要美国人,没有他们的未来,看起来很可怕