We, the West, overthrew Saddam by violence. We overthrew Gaddafi by violence. We are trying to overthrow Assad by violence. Harsh regimes all — but far less draconian than our Saudi allies, and other tyrannies around the world. What has been the result of these interventions? A hell on earth, one that grows wider and more virulent year after year.

　　我们(又被称作西方人)暴力推翻了萨达姆。我们暴力推翻了卡扎菲。我们正试图用暴力推翻阿萨德。上述政权都很恶劣——但是却也远远没有我们的沙特盟国们的政权，以及遍布全球的其它暴政残酷。那么对他国的这些干涉产生了什么结果呢？人间地狱。而且这个人间地狱在年复一年中变得更大也更恶毒。

　　Without the American crime of aggressive war against Iraq — which, by the measurements used by Western governments themselves, left more than a million innocent people dead — there would be no ISIS, no “Al Qaeda in Iraq.” Without the Saudi and Western funding and arming of an amalgam of extremist Sunni groups across the Middle East, used as proxies to strike at Iran and its allies, there would be no ISIS. Let’s go back further. Without the direct, extensive and deliberate creation by the United States and its Saudi ally of a world-wide movement of armed Sunni extremists during the Carter and Reagan administrations, there would have been no “War on Terror” — and no terrorist attacks in Paris tonight.

　　如果美国没有犯下侵略伊拉克的罪行（用西方政府自己的测量方法计算，入侵伊拉克已经造成了超过100万无辜人民死亡），就没有ISIS这个“伊拉克的基地组织”。如果没有沙特和西方对遍及中东的所有逊尼派极端组织的资金与武器支持（支持他们是为了将他们用作攻击伊朗及其盟国的代理人），就没有ISIS。让我们再往回退得更远一些。在卡特和里根执政期间，如果美国和其盟国沙特没有在世界范围内直接、广泛和蓄意地创造逊尼派极端分子的武装活动，连“反恐战争”都不会有——更不会有恐怖分子今夜在巴黎发起攻击。

　　Again, let’s be as clear as possible: the hellish world we live in today is the result of deliberate policies and actions undertaken by the United States and its allies over the past decades. It was Washington that led and/or supported the quashing of secular political resistance across the Middle East, in order to bring recalcitrant leaders like Nasser to heel and to back corrupt and brutal dictators who would advance the US agenda of political domination and resource exploitation.

　　让我们尽可能清楚地再讲一遍：我们今天住在其中的这个地狱般的世界，要拜美国和它的盟国在过去几十年中蓄意执行的政策以及采取的行动所赐。正是华盛顿在全中东领导并（或）支持镇压世俗政治的反抗，而它这样做无非是为了制服那些像纳赛尔那样拒不服从的领导人，并将腐败残暴却能推进美国政治控制以及资源开发日程的独裁者送回来。

　　The open history of the last half-century is very clear in this regard. Going all the way back to the overthrow of the democratic government of Iran in 1953, the United States has deliberately and consciously pushed the most extreme sectarian groups in order to undermine a broader-based secular resistance to its domination agenda.

　　刚刚过去的50年的受到世人瞩目的历史对于这一论点讲得非常清楚。一路回到1953年推翻伊朗民主政府那件事上：美国的控制日程表需要破坏一个有着广泛基础的世俗抵抗，因此它便蓄意和有意识地将最极端的宗教组织往前推。

　　Why bring up this “ancient history” when fresh blood is running in the streets of Paris? Because that blood would not be running if not for this ancient history; and because the reaction to this latest reverberations of Washington’s decades-long, bipartisan cultivation of religious extremism will certainly be more bloodshed, more repression and more violent intervention. Which will, in turn, inevitably, produce yet more atrocities and upheaval as we are seeing in Paris tonight.

　　为什么在新鲜的血液正流淌在巴黎的大街上时我却要大谈“古代史”?因为如果不是这部古代史，那些血液也不会在大街上流淌;因为巴黎这次袭击只是华盛顿(并受到两党支持的)几十年如一日地培植宗教极端主义的最新反响而已，而对此的反应必将是更多的屠杀和流血、更多的镇压和更多的暴力干涉。当我们还在看着今夜的巴黎时，下一个制造更为凶残的暴行、更剧烈的动乱(这是不可避免的)的会是谁?

　　I write in despair. Despair of course at the depravity displayed by the murderers of innocents in Paris tonight; but an even deeper despair at the depravity of the egregious murderers who have brought us to this ghastly place in human history: those gilded figures who have strode the halls of power for decades in the high chambers of the West, killing innocent people by the hundreds of thousands, crushing secular opposition to their favored dictators — and again, again and again — supporting, funding and arming some of the most virulent sectarians on earth.

　　我于绝望中写着，这种绝望当然是由今夜巴黎那些屠杀无辜者的谋杀犯所表现出来的至恶激发的;不过还有一个甚至更深的绝望则是由那些将我们带入这人间地狱的谋杀犯所激发的：那些镀金的人物。他们几十年如一日在西方世界高高在上的内廷里大言不惭地玩弄着权力 ;他们杀害上百万无辜的人;只因独裁者对他们有利，他们便一遍一遍又一遍粉碎世俗对独裁者的反抗;他们支持并将钱和武器交给这个星球上最恶毒的宗派主义者们。

　　And one further cause of despair: that although this historical record is there in the open, readily available from the most mainstream sources, it is and will continue to be completely ignored, both by the power-gamers and by the public. The latter will continue to support the former as they replicate and regurgitate the same old policies of intervention, the same old agendas of domination and greed, over and over and over again — creating ever-more fresh hells for us all to live in, and poisoning the lives of our children, and of all those who come after us.

　　感到绝望的第三个理由：虽然这段历史记录在那里，而且人人都可以轻易地从最主流的渠道得到，但是它还是(并将继续)被玩弄权力游戏的人和普通大众忽视，而且只是因为后者一遍一遍又一遍重复并反刍前者提出的老一套的干涉政策、老一套的控制日程表和老一套的贪婪，所以还会继续支持前者，于是我们还会生活在他们为我们制造的越来越泛滥的地狱中，而我们孩子的，以及所有随我们而来的人的性命都会受到毒害。