美国军方其实并不缺国会的拨款。但眼下的情况看起来更像是军方打算从委内瑞拉的石油资源中牟利。编辑：萨姆·蒂尔曼美国宪法仅规定了一种政府获取资金的途径：必须由国会投票批准并拨款。不过皮特·赫格塞特领导的国防部向来以善于创新著称。
It's not like the military is cash-starved from Congress. But it looks a lot like it's going to make money off Venezuelan oil Edited by Sam Thielman THE CONSTITUTION ONLY outlines one way for the government to receive funding: Congress must vote to authorize and provide it. But Pete Hegseth's Pentagon is nothing if not innovative.
今年1月，美军一举推翻了委内瑞拉政府，逮捕了尼古拉斯·马杜罗，实际上让国务卿马尔科·鲁比奥成了加拉加斯的“总督”。[相比之下，马杜罗如今就关押在我家附近的都会拘留中心里。世界真是奇妙啊——萨姆] 尽管表面上打着打击贩毒集团的旗号，特朗普政府最关心的还是夺取委内瑞拉丰富的石油资源。然而军方很快发现，用于出口这些石油的基础设施早已年久失修，急需大量资金进行修复。这时，国防部便派上了用场。
In January, the U.S. military decapitated the Venezuelan government, seized Nicolas Maduro, and functionally made Secretary of State Marco Rubio the viceroy of Caracas. [Maduro, by contrast, now lives down the street from me at the Metropolitan Detention Center, where he is an inmate. It’s a strange world—Sam.] Despite the pretextual rhetoric of combating narcotrafficker cartels, the most important concern for the Trump administration was seizing Venezuela's considerable oil resources. The infrastructure necessary for exporting all that oil, it quickly found, had fallen into disrepair. That infrastructure needs substantial capital for rejuvenation.
8月下旬，美国政府与由鲁比奥掌控的委内瑞拉“临时当局”达成了一项“协议”，明确了资源掠夺的具体条款。据白宫宣称，隶属于国防部、设立于拜登执政时期的战略资本办公室将获得一家跨国石油公司的35%股权；这家公司获得了委内瑞拉17个油田为期100年的开采权。这笔交易预计能为美国带来数千亿美元的收益与红利。
Enter the Pentagon. A "deal"—that is, between the administration and Venezuelan "interim authorities" controlled by Rubio—announced in late August outlined the terms of the resource seizure. An obscure Biden-era investment arm of the Pentagon, the Office of Strategic Capital, will receive a 35 percent equity stake in the corporate parent of the company receiving a 100-year concession for 17 Venezuelan oil fields, "representing up to hundreds of billions in value and dividends for the United States," the White House announced.
这家公司便是北美蓝色能源合作伙伴公司（NABEP），其掌门人是以腐败行径臭名昭著的委内瑞拉亿万富翁亚历杭德罗·贝坦库尔特。根据协议，美国有权以成本价购买委内瑞拉出口石油总量的20%，其余部分也可优先获取。
That company is North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), a multinational oil concern headed by notoriously corrupt Venezuelan billionaire Alejandro Betancourt. The U.S. will get to purchase 20 percent of Venezuelan oil exports at cost, and preferential access to the remainder.
战略资本办公室设立的初衷是提供贷款，用于开发或采购那些私人市场并不重视、但对国防至关重要的物资与资源。不过据《华尔街日报》报道，如今该办公室在委内瑞拉石油产业中所持有的股权却“无需投入大量资本”即可获得。这一股权是通过一种名为“一分钱认股权证”的金融工具获得的——或许山姆对此有所了解，我则全然不知；这种认股权证可用来兑换相关公司的股票。
[所谓“一分钱认股权证”，即持有者只需支付极低费用（比如一分钱）便可购买该公司的股票，无论其市场价高低。——山姆] 这意味着美国实际上只需花费极少的成本就能获得NABEP的大量股权。
The original idea behind the Office of Strategic Capital was to loan money for the development or acquisition of militarily-crucial materials and resources that private markets don't prioritize. Now, though, the Office's Venezuelan oil equity will come "without a significant capital investment," according to the Wall Street Journal. Its stake in the Venezuelan oil concession comes through a financial instrument called a penny warrant—maybe Sam is familiar with this; I wasn't—which can be traded for shares in the company. [A penny warrant allows the holder to buy shares of a company for a nominal fee, such as a penny, regardless of their price on the open market.—Sam.] This seems to mean that the U.S. will be able to purchase quite a bit of equity in NABEP for literally pennies on the dollar.
欧亚集团的能源分析师格雷戈里·布鲁向《FOREVER WARS》透露，委内瑞拉石油产量中20%的份额“很可能会按市场价格出售给第三方，从而带来利润”。他还表示：“从目前的表述来看，战略资本办公室似乎迟早会获得收益，即便不是立刻实现。”然而，该办公室由Cerberus资本管理公司的资深人员负责运营，其职能本不应是创造收益。否则，五角大楼就能获得一笔无需国会批准即可使用的资金。那么，五角大楼将如何处置这笔来自委内瑞拉石油产业的收益呢？
Similarly, that 20 percent of Venezuelan oil will "likely be sold at market rate to a third party, yielding a profit," Gregory Brew, an energy analyst at the Eurasia Group, told FOREVER WARS. "The way it's being framed, it sure sounds like OSC is going to be generating revenue, at some point if perhaps not immediately." Yet the OSC, which is run by Cerberus Capital Management veterans, isn't supposed to collect revenue. That would provide the Pentagon with an unaccountable source of funding not generated from Congressional authorization. So what will the Pentagon do with its Venezuelan oil money?
自9月5日起我便向五角大楼询问此事。起初，其新闻办公室请求我延长截止日期，我欣然同意。之后我又多次跟进询问，却始终没有得到任何回复。（当时我正忙于参加“9·11”纪念活动以及纽约动漫展，正因如此，这篇报道直到交易达成一个多月后才得以发布。唉，我也尽力了。）因此，我无法给出确切答案。
I asked the Pentagon that question beginning on Sept. 5. First its press office asked me to extend my deadline, which was no problem. Then, after three follow-up attempts, I got bupkis. (And this all happened when I was doing nonstop 9/11-commemoration appearances and then New York Comic Con, which is why this edition is coming out more than a month after the deal. Hey, I tried.) So I can't answer this question definitively.
在保持一定的分析谨慎和应有的谦逊前提下，我只能指出五角大楼从委内瑞拉石油出口中获取红利的意义。这是朝着美国军方在另一国民用经济的某些领域拥有创收股权迈出的一步。也许有一天，它也会像巴基斯坦军队那样，正如艾莎·西迪夸 famously 称之为“军事公司”（Military Inc.）。话虽如此，我们目前还不知道这一步在该方向上究竟有多大。
With some analytic caution and due humility, I can only point to the implications of the Pentagon reaping dividends from Venezuelan oil exports. This is a step in the direction of the U.S. military holding a revenue-generating stake in sectors of another country’s civilian economy. And maybe, one day, its own, as with Pakistan's army, which Ayesha Siddiqua famously called "Military Inc." That said, we don't yet know how large a step in that direction it represents.
由于五角大楼拒绝进一步说明，我们正在黑暗中涉过卢比孔河。军方绝非缺乏资金。正如您可能知道的，特朗普正在寻求1.5万亿美元的五角大楼授权，这是一笔历史性的巨额资金。虽然我不想夸大一个无法通过审计的部门的问责性，但一旦安全机构步出授权资金范围，那就是滋生暗箱操作基金的温床——想想伊朗门事件；或者中情局的“格拉迪奥行动”——此时机构会自行决定开展什么行动，而不是宪法程序所允许或指示的内容。
With the Pentagon declining to explain further, we're wading through the Rubicon in darkness. The military is anything but starved for funding. As you likely know, Trump is seeking a $1.5 trillion Pentagon authorization, a historically gigantic sum. And while I don't want to overstate the accountability of a department that cannot pass an audit, once a security agency steps outside of authorized funding, that's a recipe for a slush fund—think Iran-Contra; or the CIA's Operation Gladio—where the agency decides for itself what operations to undertake, not what the constitutional process permits or instructs it to undertake. THE RAID ON REP.
国土安全部对奥马尔众议员住所的突袭是一种荒唐。如果真有充分理由相信奥马尔犯有罪行，FBI早就该展开调查，而且会在选举前很久就完成。这是一项明确针对一位民选官员的恐吓和报复行动——她代表着一个由黑人、穆斯林和移民组成的社区联盟，而政府认为这类人不应被允许掌握政治权力。这再次提醒我们，国土安全部正在执行一个极右翼派别的政治特权。
ILHAN OMAR'S home by the Department of Homeland Security is a travesty. If there were genuine probable cause to believe Omar had committed a crime, the FBI would have investigated her, and well before an election. This is an unambiguous effort at intimidation and revenge against an elected official who represents a union of communities—black, Muslim, immigrant—that the administration believes cannot be permitted to wield political power. It is yet another reminder that the Department of Homeland Security enforces the political prerogatives of a far-right faction.
说到这个，上周，ICE 七次向奥斯卡·贝尔加尔的挡风玻璃开枪，击中了他的颈部，而他的五岁儿子当时坐在后座。事件发生在布朗克斯的一个地区，该地区在行政上隶属于曼哈顿。ICE 很快宣称贝尔加尔是个危险的罪犯，理由是他曾有定罪记录，以及ICE 暗示存在一项待决指控。然而，市长佐兰·曼丹尼却透露，贝尔加尔目前并没有有效的逮捕令——即便有，也不足以证明在车内有孩子的情况下向其挡风玻璃开枪是正当的。
SPEAKING OF, last week, ICE shot seven times through the windshield of Oscar Belgal, hitting him in the neck, while his five-year old son sat in the back seat, in a part of the Bronx that's administratively part of Manhattan. ICE took little time asserting that Belgal is a dangerous criminal, pointing to a prior conviction and what it suggested was a pending charge. Mayor Zohran Mamdani, however, revealed that there is no active warrant for Belgal's arrest—not that one would have justified shooting through his windshield with a child in the car.
周五，我在纽约漫画展离开——感谢所有到场的人——随后加入了看起来像几千名纽约人的抗议游行，从福利广场出发，前往201号瓦里克街，那是一处移民法院的所在地，ICE 在那里绑架并拘留那些遵守移民登记规定的人。
On Friday, I left ag at New York Comic Con—thanks to everyone who came out—and joined what seemed to me like several thousand New Yorkers on a protest march from Foley Square to 201 Varick Street, site of an immigration court where ICE kidnaps and detains people who are following the rules of their immigration check-ins.
虽然法官目前已阻止贝尔加尔的驱逐出境，但ICE 正将其关押在日落公园的大都会拘留中心[与马杜罗同地！—萨姆]。他的律师周日表示，贝尔加尔的颈部仍嵌有一颗子弹，并且他目前被关押在该中心的单独监禁室。
While a judge has for now blocked Belgal's deportation, ICE is holding him at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park [Same place as Maduro!—Sam.]. His attorneys said Sunday that Belgal still has a bullet lodged in his neck and that he's in solitary at MDC.
伊朗正在积极针对油轮发动攻击，作为一种高度可预测的手段，以重新确立其对霍尔木兹海峡的控制，因为美国海军护航舰队在九月份已将大量舰艇从波斯湾撤出。“此前愿意因该地区高运费而承担风险的船东们，如今已开始规避该区域，”《金融时报》记者爱丽丝·汉考克报道，她称这是“自美以对伊朗伊斯兰共和国发动打击以来七个月来，伊朗发动导弹和无人机袭击最为密集的时期。”
IRAN IS AGGRESSIVELY targeting oil tankers as a highly predictable means of reasserting its control over the Strait of Hormuz after U.S. naval escorts got a substantial number out of the Gulf in September. "Shipowners that had been willing to take risks because of high freight rates in the region have started to avoid the area," reports the Financial Times' Alice Hancock, who calls this "the most intense period of missile and drone attacks by Iran since the start of the US-Israeli strikes against the Islamic republic seven months ago."
通过特里塔·帕尔西，特拉维夫大学国家安全研究所的塔米尔·海曼审视了以色列新兴的“国家安全概念”，并得出结论认为，这可能预示着“一种可能更为根本的转变[而不仅限于国家安全层面]：以色列国家身份的变化。” 海曼明确表示，他的分析具有推断性，因此我很难将他的陈述与宣言性文件或类似的一手资料进行对比。
VIA TRITA PARSI, Tamir Hayman of the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University examines the emergence of a new Israeli "national-security concept" and concludes that it may herald "a potentially more fundamental shift [than one limited to national security]: a change in Israel’s national identity." Hayman is explicit that his examination is inferential, so it's difficult for me to compare his statements against declaratory documents or similar primary sources.
他发现的一些内容，例如将犹太民族性置于民主之上，这一观点早在以色列建国之前就已存在。
And some of what he finds, like the prioritization of a Jewish national character over democracy, have been part of Israel since before its founding.
但海曼的分析令人深感不安。海曼指出，以色列存在“对阿拉伯国家独立存在的否定”，并将“战争视为建国的基石”，而和平被重新概念化为“手段而非目的”。所有这些——以及您所知的，加沙正在进行的种族灭绝，约旦河西岸和南黎巴嫩的民族清洗，更不用说这些行为遵循了历史模式——都真的应当促使人们清晰认识到以色列在中东地区的侵略者身份。还有这一点：
But Hayman's analysis is deeply disturbing. Hayman identifies a "rejection of the independent existence of Arab states" and "war as a foundational state" for Israel, with peace reconceived as a "means rather than an end." All that—and, you know, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank and Southern Lebanon, to say nothing of these actions following a historical pattern—really ought to crystallize understanding of Israel's status as an aggressor in the Middle East. Then there's this:
自主自立与摆脱对美国的依赖：以色列的国家安全完全依赖于自身的实力，无需任何大国的支持。 以色列与美国的关系虽然重要，但纯粹是出于利益驱动。然而，过度服从美国政府的种种限制是危险的——美国正是一个“衰落中的大国”，鉴于其持续的社会和政治变革，美国迟早会抛弃以色列。过度依赖美国会使以色列受到美国进步价值观的影响，而这些价值观与以色列的犹太民族特性背道而驰。因此，切断与美国的联系不仅不可避免，而且对以色列的独立及其犹太民族身份的延续至关重要。
Self-Reliance and Severing Dependence on the United States: Israel’s national security rests solely on its own capabilities and does not require the backing of a specific great-power. Although important, the relationship with the United States is driven purely by interests. Furthermore, excessive adherence to restrictions imposed on Israel by a US administration is dangerous: The United States is a “declining power” and, given its ongoing social and political shifts, will soon abandon Israel in any event. Excessive dependence on the United States exposes Israel to the influence of a progressive American value system that is incompatible with Israel's Jewish character. Severing ties with the United States is therefore not only inevitable, but essential to Israel’s independence and the resilience of its Jewish national identity.
“过度依赖美国会使以色列受到美国进步价值观的影响，而这些价值观与以色列的犹太民族特性背道而驰”——这句话确实有些矛盾：一方面它夸大了美国价值观的“进步性”，另一方面又委婉地承认了以色列的种族隔离政策与这些价值观之间的冲突。毫无疑问，随着美国民众对以色列态度的恶化，以色列人（包括本雅明·内塔尼亚胡总理）越来越倾向于实现自给自足（即减少对外部援助的依赖）。
"Excessive dependence on the United States exposes Israel to the influence of a progressive American value system that is incompatible with Israel's Jewish character" is an incredible sentence, since it both overstates the progressiveness of American values and acknowledges even though euphemism that Israeli apartheid is incompatible with those values. And I have no doubt that autarky is a growing desire of Israelis, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu among them, who observe the rising American popular antipathy for Israel.
但以色列确实无法在没有大国支持的情况下生存下去：该国严重依赖进口物资；其邻国也有理由对其感到恐惧和敌视；而且以色列从俄罗斯或中国那里也得不到更好的待遇。如果以色列出于自身的政治需要而选择切断与美国的关系，那也只能如此吧。
But Israel simply cannot survive without great-power sponsorship. It's dependent on imports; its neighbors have reason to fear and hate it (see above); and it sure won't get a better deal from Russia or China. If its genocidal political imperatives lead Israel to sever ties with the United States, so be it.
塔利班正在将巴格拉姆空军基地用作拘留中心，就像美国曾经使用过的一样。（报道来源：Drop Site的埃姆兰·费罗兹）巴格拉姆监狱作为关押犯人的设施，这一历史背景引发了关于其当前用途的新一轮猜测。来自阿富汗各地的报道指出，塔利班正在利用该监狱关押犯罪嫌疑人、被怀疑属于“伊斯兰国呼罗珊省”（ISKP）的成员以及政治异见人士。
THE TALIBAN ARE using Bagram Airfield as a detention center, much as the United States did. Reports Drop Site's Emran Feroz: Bagram’s legacy as a prison facility has generated a second set of rumors about its current role. Reports across Afghanistan suggest that the Taliban are utilizing the facility to hold criminal suspects, alleged members of Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), and political dissidents.
塔利班官员穆夫提·阿卜杜勒·阿哈德·哈基米承认，该监狱的部分设施仍在由国防部负责管理；但他拒绝透露被关押者的具体人数、他们的身份，以及关押他们的法律依据。
[Taliban official Mufti Abdul Ahad] Hakimi acknowledged that parts of the facility remain operational under the Ministry of Defense, though he declined to specify the number of detainees, their identities, or the legal standards governing their detention.
据费尔莫兹透露，哈基米本人也曾被关押在巴格拉姆监狱并遭受过虐待。
According to Fermoz, Hakimi himself was once detained and abused at Bagram.
马特·博尔斯（Matt Bors）带着他的新系列漫画《Toxic Avenger》回来了！这一次，这位备受赞誉的政治漫画家与优秀的艺术家费利佩·索布里埃罗（Felipe Sobriero）合作，共同创作了《Toxic Avenger vs. Noxious Offender》——该漫画的首期将于10月7日发售。不过由于漫画市场的运作机制较为混乱，你最好现在就告诉你们当地的漫画书店你想要购买这部作品！
MATT BORS is back like he never left—with a new series of Toxic Avenger! This time, the goated political cartoonist turned comics writer pairs with the excellent artist Felipe Sobriero for Toxic Avenger vs. Noxious Offender, whose first issue drops October 7—but because of the dysfunctional way the comics market operates, you should right now let the friendly staff of your local comics shop know that you want it!
康纳·戈德史密斯（Connor Goldsmith）是《Cerebro》播客的主持人，同时也是《The Kibitz》节目的联合创作者；他首次以漫画家的身份亮相，推出了《DID YOU HEAR ABOUT MIMI GREEN?》这部精彩的作品，这部小说探讨了名利、社交媒体以及恐怖题材。你绝对不能错过！
Connor Goldsmith, the telepath behind the Cerebro podcast (and one-half of The Kibitz), makes his comic debut with DID YOU HEAR ABOUT MIMI GREEN?, a fantastic thriller meditating on fame, social media and body horror! You have to read this!
《WALLER VS. WILDSTORM》是一部超级英雄间谍惊悚小说，由我和我的朋友埃文·纳西斯（Evan Narcisse）共同创作，插画由杰苏斯·梅里诺（Jesús Merino）负责绘制。该书现已以精装版形式上市！如果你还没有单期杂志，且想要一套四期的签名版，赶紧去Bulletproof Comics购买吧！Bulletproof Comics还出售我和朱利叶斯·奥塔（Julius Ohta）合作的《IRON MAN》系列的签名版；《IRON MAN VOL. 1: THE STARK-ROXXON WAR》的前五期也已以平装本的形式出版，同样可以在Bulletproof Comics购买到签名版！
WALLER VS. WILDSTORM, the superhero spy thriller I co-wrote with my friend Evan Narcisse and which the masterful Jesús Merino illustrated, is available for purchase in a hardcover edition! If you don't have single issues of WVW and you want a four-issue set signed by me, they're going fast at Bulletproof Comics! Bulletproof is also selling signed copies of my IRON MAN run with Julius Ohta, so if you want those, buy them from Flatbush's finest! IRON MAN VOL. 1: THE STARK-ROXXON WAR, the first five issues, is now collected in trade paperback! Signed copies of that are at Bulletproof, too!
没有人比她的兄长更为为《WVW》感到骄傲了。《恐怖统治：9·11时代如何动摇美国并催生特朗普》现已推出精装版、平装版、有声书及Kindle电子书版本。此外，该系列即将迎来新成员——《失踪者：一位父亲、一个儿子与反恐战争》。
And IRON MAN VOL. 2: THE INSURGENT IRON MAN is available here! No one is prouder of WVW than her older sibling, REIGN OF TERROR: HOW THE 9/11 ERA DESTABILIZED AMERICA AND PRODUCED TRUMP, which is available now in hardcover, softcover, audiobook and Kindle edition. And on the way is a new addition to the family: THE DISAPPEARED: A FATHER, A SON AND THE WAR ON TERROR.