Our security is dependent on those who are willing to fight our foreign enemies and die for their country. We honor them and their families because their bravery and courage protect our democracy. We respect our military precisely because its role in defending the nation means that the military does not get involved in politics. If we allow the president to politicize the military, that will undermine the trust of the American people in our national security. The mobilization of the National Guard in California has raised concerns about whether the reason for its deployment was based on real threats to law and order, or on political differences between the governor of California and the president of the United States.
我们的安全取决于那些愿意与我们的外国敌人作斗争并为自己的国家而死的人。我们尊敬他们和他们的家人，因为他们的英勇和勇气保护了我们的民主。我们尊重我们的军事，这是因为它在捍卫国家中的作用意味着军队没有参与政治。如果我们允许总统将军队政治化，那将破坏美国人民对我们国家安全的信任。在加利福尼亚州的国民警卫队的动员引起了人们对部署的原因是基于对法律和秩序的真正威胁，还是基于加利福尼亚州州长与美国总统之间的政治分歧。
To protect the role of the military, the U.S. has historically made clear in its laws that federal troops should not be used for civilian law enforcement. In 1878, President Rutherford Hayes signed the Posse Comitatus Act, which bars the military from doing the work of law-enforcement officers. Even the statutes that authorize the president to activate the National Guard make clear that troops are to be limited to responding to “invasions” or “rebellions.” The U.S. is not facing either an invasion or a rebellion.
为了保护军队的角色，美国历史上已经明确指出，联邦部队不应用于平民执法。1878年，总统卢瑟福·海斯（Rutherford Hayes）签署了《 POSSE COMITATUS法》，该法案禁止军方从事执法人员的工作。甚至授权总统激活国民警卫队的法规也明确表示，部队只能限制对“入侵”或“叛乱”的回应。美国不面对入侵或叛乱。
Respect for the military’s role is crucial for our democracy. That is why the law is designed to ensure that our armed forces are not politicized or misused. This rule-of-law tenet is the fundamental difference between a free society and an autocracy. Tyrants use the military as a pawn to solidify power, put down protests, and arrest opponents. Russian President Vladimir Putin has incurred as many as a million casualties among the soldiers he sent into Ukraine for his dictatorial goal of restoring the supposed greatness of the Soviet Union. Putin has found an ally in another ruthless autocrat, North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, who has sent forces to help Russia’s fight in Ukraine. In China, the primary purpose of the military is to protect those in power. In each case, the tyrant demands—for his own survival—that the loyalty of the military is solely to him, not to the nation, let alone the people.
尊重军队的角色对我们的民主至关重要。这就是为什么法律旨在确保我们的武装部队不会被政治化或滥用的原因。这个法治宗旨是自由社会与专制政治之间的根本差异。暴君将军方用作典当，以巩固权力，放下抗议和逮捕对手。俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京（Vladimir Putin）因恢复苏联所谓的伟大目标而派遣到乌克兰的士兵中遭受了多达100万人伤亡。普京在另一位无情的独裁者中找到了一个盟友，朝鲜的领导人金正恩（Kim Jong Un）派遣部队帮助俄罗斯在乌克兰的战斗。在中国，军方的主要目的是保护当权者。在每种情况下，暴君都要求军队的忠诚仅对他，而不是对国家，更不用说人民了。
Tom Nichols: Trump is using the National Guard as bait
汤姆·尼科尔斯（Tom Nichols）：特朗普将国民警卫队用作诱饵
Doing a dictator’s bidding is not how the military works in America. Our service members swear an oath of loyalty to the Constitution, not to the president. They follow the orders of the president as their commander in chief, but may do so only if those orders are legal and pursuant to the Constitution. Their job demands training, skill, and courage, certainly. The job also requires the capacity to make decisions based solely on the goal of accomplishing a national-security mission, not appeasing political leaders. As secretary of defense, I was a party to the kinds of tough decisions our military has to make. That judgment must not be damaged by those who seek to use it for political purposes.
进行独裁者的竞标不是美国军队在美国的运作方式。我们的服务成员宣誓宣誓对宪法，而不是对总统。他们遵循总统的总司令的命令，但只有在这些命令是合法的并根据宪法的情况下，才能这样做。当然，他们的工作需要培训，技巧和勇气。这项工作还要求仅基于完成国家安全任务而不是安抚政治领导人的目标才能做出决策。作为国防部长，我是我们军方必须做出的艰难决定的聚会。那些试图将其用于政治目的的人不得损害这种判断。
At the Pentagon, I bore the vital responsibility of deciding on the deployment of our men and women in uniform, and whether to put them in harm’s way. The concern that some of those deployed would not return from a mission was always uppermost in my mind. Whenever we lost a serving soldier, I would receive a report and see their name. On those occasions, I personally wrote a condolence note to their family. The list of fallen warriors was also sent to the White House so that the president could do the same and convey the nation’s gratitude to the family for the sacrifice that their loved one had made.
在五角大楼，我承担了决定以制服的男人和女人的部署以及是否以伤害方式部署他们的重要责任。在我看来，某些部署某些人不会从任务中返回的担忧总是最高的。每当我们失去服务士兵时，我都会收到一份报告并查看他们的名字。在这些情况下，我亲自给他们的家人写了一张慰问。堕落的战士名单也被送往白宫，以便总统可以做同样的事情，并向全家人感谢自己所爱的人所做的牺牲。
Admiral Bill McRaven, the head of Special Operations Command at the time, made clear to me that every military judgment must be based on doing what’s right to accomplish the mission. As the director of the CIA, I was in charge of the covert operation to hunt down the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at his secret compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. McRaven was the Afghanistan-based operational commander of the raid, in which two teams of Navy SEALs flew 150 miles at night. As they were about to land, residual heat from the day caused one of their helicopters to stall out and make a hard landing that left its tail stuck on one of the compound’s walls. I called McRaven to ask what was going on. He was decisive in his response. “I have called in a backup helicopter, and we will proceed with the mission breaching through the walls,” he said. “The mission will go on.” I gave my approval. The mission was successful: The man who had masterminded the 9/11 attacks was finally eliminated. The kind of split-second judgment that McRaven showed is what our military is trained to do.
当时的特种作战司令部负责人比尔·麦克拉文（Bill McRaven）向我明确指出，每一个军事判决都必须基于执行完成任务的权利。作为中央情报局的董事，我负责秘密行动，以在巴基斯坦阿伯塔巴德（Abbottabad）的秘密大院（Secret Apersound）寻找基地组织的领导人乌萨马·本·拉登（Osama Bin Laden）。麦克拉文（McRaven）是阿富汗的突袭行动指挥官，其中两支海豹突击队在晚上飞行了150英里。当他们即将降落时，当天的残留热量导致他们的一架直升机停滞不前，并进行了艰难的降落，使尾巴粘在一个化合物的墙壁之一上。我打电话给麦克拉文问发生了什么事。他的回应是决定性的。他说：“我打电话给备用直升机，我们将继续穿过墙壁的任务。”“任务将继续。”我给予了认可。任务是成功的：策划了9/11攻击的人终于被消除了。麦克拉文（McRaven）表明的那种分裂的判断是我们的军队的训练。
In the recent success of the U.S. forces that were deployed to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, the military did a great job of planning and execution. America has the strongest military force on Earth, but all of the technologically advanced weapons, planes, ships, and equipment would not be worth much without the skill and training of our service men and women. At outposts throughout the world, they are our front line of defense. They are our national security.
在部署以攻击伊朗核设施的美军最近的成功中，军方在计划和处决方面做得很好。美国拥有地球上最强大的军事力量，但是如果没有我们服务的男人和女人的技巧和培训，所有技术先进的武器，飞机，船只和设备都不是值得的。在世界各地的前哨基地，它们是我们的前防线。他们是我们的国家安全。
To maintain that security demands that we protect and respect the constitutional purpose they serve. If a president deliberately misuses the military for partisan reasons, he is weakening America’s safety. Leadership of a military devoted to defending our nation is an honored role that goes back to George Washington and the creation of the Continental Army 250 years ago. During that long history, Americans have learned that presidential parades do not define their military; what does is their respect for the military’s mission of protecting national security. Trust in the military is indivisible from trust in the Constitution. Both must remain inviolable.
为了保持安全要求我们保护和尊重他们所服务的宪法目的。如果总统出于党派原因故意滥用军队，那么他正在削弱美国的安全。一支致力于捍卫我们国家的军队的领导是一个尊敬的角色，可以追溯到乔治·华盛顿，并于250年前创建了大陆军。在悠久的历史中，美国人了解到总统游行没有定义他们的军队。他们尊重军队保护国家安全的使命。对军队的信任是对宪法的信任是不可分割的。两者都必须保持不可侵犯。
