这是以前曾发给一些新闻报导界朋友的一封公开信.现在看来还有刊登的价值,因为多维已经越走越远了.现转发给你,供你参考.
柏桥
原发表在(2/3/2003 13:52) 新世纪网站：
http://www.ncn.org/asp/zwginfo/da.asp?ID=50038&ad=2/3/2003
各位新闻界朋友:
多维网作为一个传媒机构,毫无职业操守和法治观点,常常在转载转译其他新闻机构的文章时将原文改得面目全非,有时还故意弯曲原文本意.我最近开始留心这一网站,结果短短几天就发现了大量问题.比如,今天有两篇放在最重要的版面的“唱衰”美国的转译文章,均将原文标题与内容进行了篡改。其中一片注明译自纽约时报的文章,标题为“美国的下一个灾难是甚么?”（记者黄东）。可这篇文章的原标题却是“Disaster Stirs Already Unsettled Feelings Across the Country”,与多维网的标题差了十万八千里;另一篇注明转译远东经济评论的文章,标题为“美国无法同时打赢两场战争”（记者苏小蕙）,而原文标题却是“ War In Iraq: Leaving Asia Exposed”,也是牛头不对马嘴.而这两篇文章的内容也被改得面目全非（参见后面的原文与多维网转译文）.....
六篇头版新闻中就有两篇改头换面重新包装上市的作品.这样的新闻机构,还标榜客观公正;在我看来,不过是一群嫖客在廉价贩卖仿制盗版产品。
我已做过简单的统计和分析,多维（注意,他们贩卖的就是多元公正）头版每天平均有一到两篇新闻或文章是负面评价美国政治、经济与社会生活的（头版总共不过五六篇文章）。有时占头版版面的一半（大约三篇）；而批评中国政府的文章几乎全部被安置在“边远地区”，要么是多维观点，要么是地区新闻等，鲜见有这类文章出现在头版。而且，他们几乎每天都少不了歌颂中共新主人胡锦涛等的长篇报导，比如说胡锦涛如何亲民啦，如何准备政治改革啦，李长春如何精明能干啦，曾庆红如何深谋远虑啦，等等（正写着，一篇头版“新闻”：“共青团派三梯队及其核心”又冒出来了----这都算哪门子新闻？）；更是少不了隔几天来一两篇修理异议人士的专栏文章----多维的主管还四处标榜自己是中国政府的异议人士，真是让人笑掉大牙。异议人士不遗余力地吹捧当局者，毫不留情地鞭挞其他异议人士（他们的专栏作者甚至认为异议人士郑义想杀死几亿中国人！），这也算是当代中国社会的一大特色吧。
多维既没有公正可言，也无诚信，这早已是多数敢对中国政府说不的人的共识。不过，我还是有一点弄不明白：他们为何总是故意四处寻找批评贬低美国的文章转载，而且还并不满足，往往还要将原文修改和编辑成对美国更具挑衅性的文稿发表，这倒底是为甚么呢?各位是否也想过这个问题呢？
但愿我们能为清洁中文传媒做点甚么。
唐柏桥
Disaster Stirs Already Unsettled Feelings Across the Country
By TODD S. PURDUM
ASHINGTON, Feb. 1 _ For sleeping Texans who heard the “boom-boom,” it was the sound of the sky falling. For the clinical voice of NASA's Mission Control, it was a “contingency.” For Americans already grappling with a confluence of threatening events, the instinctive reaction was, “What next?”
Like the space shuttle Challenger disaster 17 years ago this week and the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the disintegration of the shuttle Columbia played out in real time before a nationwide television audience, sparking many of the same unsettled feelings.
Only because the breakup began some 40 miles above the earth could the instinct to think of terrorism be repressed. But to a nation still struggling with the aftermath of the most devastating terrorist attack in its history and the abiding threat of another, plus a sluggish economy, nuclear tension with North Korea and the prospect of war with Iraq, this morning's disaster was an especially harsh blow.
“The cause in which they died will continue,” President Bush vowed in remarks to the nation from the White House this afternoon. “Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand. Our journey into space will go on.”
When the Challenger exploded on takeoff on Jan. 28, 1986, President Ronald Reagan sought to reassure schoolchildren captivated by the presence on the mission of Christa McAuliffe, who was to have been the first teacher in space.
“We've grown used to the idea of space, and perhaps we forget that we've only just begun,” Mr. Reagan said, adding: “I know it's hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the faint-hearted. It belongs to the brave.”
Mr. Bush will surely need to summon all the courage he can muster _ and more important, summon the nation's _ in the days and weeks ahead. For even as he tries to rally anxious Americans and doubting allies for a war, he will face a new, if predictable, challenge: public demands for answers and political demands for accountability.
This afternoon, the NASA administrator, Sean O'Keefe, pledged an immediate internal review of mission STS-107, as well as an outside inquiry by an independent “mishap investigation board.” Mr. O'Keefe said relevant flight data in NASA's computers was already being secured.
The mourning will come first, of course, and Mr. O'Keefe said: “The loss of this valiant crew is something we will never be able to get over.” Like the Challenger, whose crew was a multiracial, multiethnic American mosaic, the Columbia had a varied crew, including the first Israeli astronaut. One member was born in Iowa, while another was born in India.
Unlike the Challenger, which exploded over the ocean, the Columbia fell to earth this morning in fiery and potentially toxic bits over the cities and towns of Mr. Bush's home state, like a scene from “War of the Worlds.” NASA spokesmen warned the public not to touch any debris but to report it instead to law enforcement authorities.
In a twist of nomenclature that would seem plausible only in fiction, a craft carrying Col. Ilan Ramon of the Israeli Air Force apparently broke up near an East Texas town called Palestine. By late morning, NASA was lowering flags to half-staff.
Televisions that had been full of Saturday morning cartoons were alive with charts, drawings and the endless replays of the shuttle's shockingly wrong multiple vapor trails as it streaked at six times the speed of sound toward a landing in Florida after a 16-day science mission.
John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth 41 years ago, and his wife, Annie, had just turned on their television to watch the landing. Mr. Glenn, who flew on the shuttle Discovery in 1998, told The Associated Press that “once you went for several
minutes without any contact, you knew something was terribly wrong.”
Government officials said that there were no indications of terrorism, and that the shuttle was out of range of surface-to-air missiles. Whatever the cause, there was no possibility of an emergency landing or ejection by the astronauts after the craft got in trouble at 200,000 feet, moving at 12,500 miles an hour.
In the initial aftermath of the Challenger disaster, the national and official mood was numbness. Only later did it become apparent that NASA had long had evidence of the very vulnerability that caused that accident, the O-rings on the shuttle's solid fuel rockets, which tended to become brittle and shrink in cold weather like that on the morning of the Challenger's ill-fated launching. Engineers had warned of the possibility just hours before
the launching.
So, too, in the days after Sept. 11, 2001, there was national unity and great reluctance to question the government missteps or intelligence failures that might have left the nation vulnerable to such brutal attack. But those questions have since surfaced increasingly, and many remain unanswered.
But for the moment, today there was only shock. Democratic leaders of the House of Representatives, meeting at a Pennsylvania resort to plan strategy for confronting President Bush on taxes, Medicare and the rest of his domestic agenda, instead began to pray. “We thought that matters we were dealing with were of the greatest seriousness,” said Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the minority leader. “But it isn't of the greatest urgency for us to discuss them right now.”
特稿：美国的下一个灾难是甚么？
【多维新闻社3日电】多维社记者黄东报导／美东时间2月1日上午9时左右，正从太空返回地球的美国“哥伦比亚”号航天飞机在得州上空意外解体，7名宇航员遇难。这一灾难震惊了全球，更让尚未从911袭击中完全恢复的美国人民再次陷入巨大悲恸之中。他们的本能反应是，“美国的下一个灾难是甚么？”
纽约时报2日载文指出，如同17年前的这个星期“挑战者”号航天飞机在升空时发生爆炸及一年多前的911袭击那样，美国人民在电视中看到了“哥伦比亚”号航天飞机解体的全过程。仅仅因为解体发生在地球上空40英里，人们关于航天飞机遭恐怖袭击的想法才被压抑。
但对一个正从历来最具毁灭性的恐怖袭击及持续恐怖威胁中努力恢复正常同时又面临经济停滞、伊拉克战争和朝鲜核危机的国家来说，哥伦比亚号航天飞机失事对美国的打击显得特别沉重。
文章说，1986年1月28日挑战者号爆炸后，里根总统对全国人民说，“我们已经习惯了太空的概念，可能已经忘了我们刚刚起步。我知道这很难理解，但有时候像这样悲恸的事情就发生了。这是抓住集会、扩展人类空间的一部份。未来不属于脆弱的心灵，未来属于强者。”
布什总统现在显然需要调动国人一切他能调动的勇气，特别是在未来几天和几周时间里。因为即便在他努力团结焦虑的国民和犹豫的盟友准备战争之际，如果预计正确的话，他将面临来自一个新挑战：公众要求政府给出答案，政府必须承当政治责任。
文章指出，和挑战者号爆炸后一样，美国人民首先将哀悼遇难的宇航员。不同的是，挑战者号在海上坠毁，而哥伦比亚号却变做巨大的火球，坠毁在布什总统家乡所在的得州，可能含有剧毒物质的碎片更散布到得州和路州大片地区。整个情景就像电影“星际大战”（War of the Worlds）中外星人侵略地球的一幕。
为此，美国太空总署已警告公众，不要碰触航天飞机的任何碎片，一旦发现，应马上报告执法部门。
另外，911袭击后，美国民众空前团结在政府周围，基本上不愿质疑政府的失误或者是否因为情报部门反恐不力才导致国家遭受攻击。但这些问题已慢慢浮现出来，并越来越紧急，很多迄今尚未得到答覆。国民期待政府做出回应。
WAR IN IRAQ Leaving Asia Exposed
U.S. leaders say they can fight two major wars at once, and win. But the facts show that the U.S. will have little choice but to stick with diplomacy on one front in order to pursue war on another. IT WAS GUNBOAT diplomacy in the American superpower style. On January 23, the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk put to sea from its home port in Yokosuka, Japan, with a clear warning from the Pentagon to Kim Jong Il: Just because we're building forces for an attack on Iraq doesn't mean we can't fight a war in Asia.
WHY TWO WARS WON'T WORK
． Heavy casualties are inevitable and a political nightmare
． There are not enough transport and backup assets to go around
． Hi-tech airborne equipment is in limited supply
． While fighting Iraq, it could take 45 days to get vital military
assets to Asia
． Troops in Asia would need massive reinforcements
“We are capable of fighting two major regional conflicts,” United States Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had threatened earlier. “We're capable of winning decisively in one and swiftly defeating in the case of the other. And let there be no doubt about it.”
In fact, there are many doubts. In Washington and Asia, there is a growing realization that one major conflict is all that the down-sized, post-Cold War U.S. military can handle without risking heavy casualties--which would make a second conflict a political nightmare. Instead, the U.S. will inevitably be forced to resort to diplomacy on one front in order to pursue war on another.
“Even with all its awesome military power, everybody recognizes that the U.S. can't really mount a two-fold operation, one in Iraq and another on the Korean peninsula, and keep casualties down low enough to stop a popular upheaval at home,” says Canberra-based strategic analyst Allan Behm.
This limit to U.S. military power has serious long-term implications for security in Northeast Asia, where more than 80,000 U.S. troops at bases in Japan and South Korea have helped maintain peace and stability for decades. At any time when the U.S. is tied down in a major conflict, the value of its security commitments in the region could come into question.
U.S. officials immediately downplayed the Kitty Hawk's move into regional waters, noting that it may even be sent to the Gulf.
And it is unlikely that North Korea wants war or that China is about to try to take Taiwan by force. But the two-war fallacy is not merely academic. The fact that Washington cannot onvincingly fight North Korea and Iraq at the same time is a key factor in Washington's current approach to Pyongyang's recent nuclear brinkmanship: Contain tension and seek a diplomatic solution while the Iraq build-up is under way. “This administration is intent on not letting North Korea get in the way,” says one administration official.
Asian defence specialists say that senior military planners in Pyongyang could not have failed to notice that the massive U.S. deployment to the Middle East to fight the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq resulted in the movement of key military assets away from Asia, particularly support and logistics equipment that would have to be brought to the region in the event of war. Chinese military analysts, too, would have absorbed this lesson, which could be crucial in any conflict in the Taiwan Strait.
What they also know is that deep cuts to the U.S. military in the years after the Gulf War mean that the Pentagon would now be even more stretched for manpower if it was forced to fight another major war or even build up troops to deter a clash. Since the 1991 Gulf War, the U.S. active-duty military force has shrunk by almost half, to 1.4 million. For Operation Desert Storm, which expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait and shattered much of Baghdad's military might, the U.S. was able to deploy a 550,000-strong ground force. By comparison, today's total active-duty U.S. army strength is about 480,000.
Vastly improved precision weapons, battlefield surveillance and communications mean that that the U.S. now needs fewer soldiers, aircraft and supplies to win on the battlefield. But high-intensity conflict in Korea would still stretch even these updated U.S. forces, despite recent defence budget increases. The biggest problem the U.S. faces in defending Asia is that deploying large forces far from their home bases takes up a huge proportion of available shipping, transport aircraft, air-to-air refuellers and surveillance aircraft that provide necessary backup to the sophisticated U.S. war machine.
There is also a limited supply of high-technology equipment that is crucial to modern U.S. fighting, including airborne warning and control systems, airborne command centres, airborne electronic warfare aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, missile defence systems and psychological operations aircraft.
Even if the U.S. could exert its full power, most military experts believe the North could devastate Seoul and the South's economy in the early phase of any conflict regardless of the fact that Pyongyang would probably be defeated over the longer term.
Along with biological, chemical and possibly nuclear weapons, North Korea has about a million troops, thousands of artillery guns and rocket launchers and thousands of tanks, many deployed close to the Demilitarized Zone dividing the peninsula.
In comparison, U.S. forces in Asia are relatively modest. Most analysts believe that the 37,000 U.S. troops based in South Korea would need massive reinforcements to assist the 690,000-strong South Korean military hold off a major attack from the North.
Without the Kitty Hawk and its aircraft, the U.S. would be left with about 160 combat aircraft in South Korea and Japan. This is where the trouble starts if the U.S. is engaged elsewhere. Initially, lightly armed Marine units from the 47,000-strong U.S. force in Japan could be deployed at short notice but they lack the firepower for the type of warfare expected on the Korean peninsula. Anthony Cordesman, a senior strategic analyst with the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies wrote in a recent paper that it could take at least 21 days for the U.S. to deploy major armoured or mechanized reinforcements.
“If the U.S. was fighting in Iraq or another major regional contingency, a shortage of lift could extend this to 45 days and the U.S. land forces would face a shortage in specialized land warfare, combat-ready support forces and sustainment assets,” he wrote.
Top U.S. military officers acknowledge this scenario. As far back as 1999, Gen. Henry Shelton, then chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said that two wars could be won but would carry a “moderate risk” of casualties in one case and a “high risk” in the second.
WASHINGTON AVOIDS A FIGHT
It is this thinking that lies behind Washington's willingness to negotiate with Pyongyang while preparing to use force to disarm Iraq, a double standard that has put the Bush administration on the spot. “It makes it awkward for the administration to explain why it is attacking Iraq when it is using diplomacy in North Korea,” says Richard Cronin, an Asia specialist with the Congressional Research Service.
Few if any experts believe Pyongyang really wants conflict with the U.S. Most believe North Korea's objective is to blackmail Washington into an aid deal that would keep its sagging economy afloat, and that Pyongyang sparked the crisis now to maximize pressure on Washington.
That doesn't mean there is no risk of conflict in Korea. The fact that the more cautious Clinton administration was willing to contemplate a pre-emptive attack on North Korea's Yongbyon reactor in 1994 indicates that Washington could eventually decide that the risk of allowing Pyongyang to build multiple nuclear weapons could outweigh the danger of a destructive war.
And there is always the threat of conflict beginning by accident, particularly while tension remains high over Pyongyang's admission it is developing nuclear weapons and evidence that it has reactivated nuclear facilities frozen under a 1994 agreement.
“Anybody in their right mind in North East Asia would have to be more focused on North Korea than on Iraq,” says John Pike, an analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, a Virginia-based think-tank. “North Korea could unfold quickly.”
特稿：美国不能同时打赢两场战争对东北亚的影响
【多维新闻社2日电】多维社记者苏小蕙报导/美国领导人说，美国能够同时进行两场战争,而且能够获胜，但是事实却显示出，为了在一个战场上进行战争，在另一个对抗中，美国除了通过外交努力解决问题外，别无选择。
2003年1月23日，美国航空母舰“小鹰号”（Kitty Hawk）从日本横须贺港口启程，开始在东北亚地区海域游弋--这实际上是美国国防部向朝鲜首领金正日发出的一个清楚警告：不要认为美国忙于在海湾地区结集军队对付伊拉克，美国就无力同时在亚洲也进行一场战争。
美国国防部长拉姆斯菲尔得曾经警告说，“美国能够进行两场重大地区性战争，美国能够决定性地赢得一场战争，并迅速在另外一个战场也击败敌人；对于这一点，大家都不要有任何疑问。”
但是，《远东经济评论》认为，事实上，有很多疑问。
《远东经济评论》文章在分析为甚么美国同时打赢两场战争的战略不会有效时说，其原因包括，重大人员伤亡将不可避免，从而在美国国内政治上将是一场恶梦；美国没有足够的运输和支持能力满足两场战争的需要；高科技空中装备远远满足不了需求；在进行伊拉克战争的时候，美国需要45天的时间才能将关键性的军事装备运输到亚洲；如果同时进行对朝鲜的战争，美国驻亚洲的军队需要大量增援。
在华盛顿和亚洲，人们越来越认识到，在不造成重大人员伤亡情况下，后冷战时代规模已经减少的美国军队能够应付的不过是一场重大军事冲突，同时进行两场战争对美国来说将是一个政治上的恶梦，美国也因此不可避免地被迫在进行一场战争的同时在另一个对抗中诉诸外交。
《远东经济评论》认为，美国军事力量上的这种局限性对东北亚地区的安全来说将构成长远影响--在过去的数十年中，在东北亚地区，美国在南韩和日本总共驻扎的八万军队帮助维持了该地区的和平和稳定。如果美国在全球其它任何地方卷入重大冲突，美国在东北亚地区维持安全的能力将大打折扣。
在“小鹰号”航空母舰进入东北亚水域后，美国官员很快低调处理“小鹰号”的活动，他们说，“小鹰号”可能被派往海湾地区。《远东经济评论》指出，美国能够同时打赢两场重大地区性战争的谬论不仅仅是一个学术问题--美国无力同时决定性地打败朝鲜和伊拉克正是美国目前处理朝鲜核战争边缘政策的关键因素，即在海湾地区集结军队的同时试图通过外交努力解决朝鲜问题。
亚洲的防卫分析人士说，朝鲜不可能不注意到，在1991年海湾战争时候，美国曾将大量本来驻扎在东北亚地区的关键性军事装备运往海湾，特别是支持和后勤装备。中国军事分析人士也应该从美国1991年海湾战争中吸取了教训，而中国从中吸取的教训在未来如果台湾海峡发生军事冲突时候，将可能起关键作用。
大幅度改进的精确制导武器，战场侦察和通讯手段使美国现在需要较少的士兵，飞机和供应就可以获得战场胜利，但是即使美国国防预算已经增长，朝鲜半岛的高强度军事冲突将仍然导致美国装备最新武器的军队疲于奔命，在防御东北亚冲突中，美国军队将面临的最大问题是在距离美国本土如此遥远的地方部署大量军队需要大量的海上，空中运输船只和飞机，以及空中加油机，侦察飞机等等
美国军方高级官员也承认美国同时打赢两场战争的能力有限。《远东经济评论》指出，早在1999年，当时的美国参谋长联席会议主席谢尔顿（Henry
Shelton）就说，美国可能同时打赢两场战争，但是在一个战场上，美国将冒着中等程度的人员伤亡的危险，但是在另外一个战场上，美国人员伤亡的危险将很大。
没有多少人认为，朝鲜真的希望同美国进行军事冲突，大部份人士相信，朝鲜的目的不过是通过敲诈，迫使美国同自己在援助上达成协议，以帮助自己恢复破产的经济。
但是，美国设立在弗吉尼亚州的智库GlobalSecurity.org的一位分析人士说，朝鲜半岛的局势可能在很短的时间内急剧恶化。
(新世纪)
