美军留在阿富汗并新部署到喀麦隆
时间：2019-01-12 作者：英语课 分类：2015年VOA慢速英语(十)月
US Troops to Remain in Afghanistan, Deploy 1 to Cameroon 美军留在阿富汗并新部署到喀麦隆
President Barack Obama announced on Thursday that he will slow the planned withdrawal 2 of United States forces from Afghanistan. The announcement came a day after the president said he would send troops to Cameroon to help in the fight against Boko Haram militants 3. Under Mr. Obama’s leadership, the U.S. has led an international coalition 4 against the Islamic State group for more than a year. Islamic State forces control parts of both Syria and Iraq.
Mr. Obama was elected in 2008 partly because he promised to bring American troops home and end the long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many Americans had grown tired of the wars and wanted their sons and daughters who were fighting them to come home. On Thursday, the president said he knows this is still what the American people want.
“I know that many of you have grown weary of this conflict. As you all are well aware, I do not support the idea of endless war.”
Mr. Obama has said many times during his two terms that he wants American troops removed from conflict areas by the time he leaves office. In May of 2014, he spoke 5 to soldiers at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He told them that most of the American troops who were then in Afghanistan would be home by the time he left office in January 2017.
But Afghan troops have not been able to provide security for the country. On Thursday, President Obama said “Afghan forces are still not as strong as they need to be.” Afghanistan’s former Taliban rulers and their supporters continue to threaten security. The Taliban has surprised U.S. officials with its strength and ability to control rural areas and launch deadly attacks on cities.
“The bottom line is in key areas of the country, the security situation is still very fragile, and in some places there’s risk of deterioration 6.”
So Mr. Obama announced this week that he has decided 7 to keep the number of American troops in Afghanistan at 9,800 through most of 2016. He plans to reduce that number to 5,500 by the time he leaves office in early 2017. At one time, there were 100,000 American troops in the country. Two thousand, two hundred Americans have died in the fighting.
Officials say the president made his decision after months of talks with U.S. military leaders and Afghan officials. Many officials were worried when Afghan forces lost control of the northern city of Kunduz for a short time to Taliban militants.
Also this week, President Obama ordered the military to send about 300 American troops to the central African nation of Cameroon. He announced the deployment 8 in a letter sent to the heads of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Mr. Obama wrote that about 90 U.S. troops began deploying 9 to Cameroon on Monday. They will use unmanned aircraft to find Boko Haram militants.
A U.S. defense 10 official said that Cameroon invited the troops as part of a larger international effort to stop the spread of violent extremists. The official said the need for international action has, in the official’s words, become “more urgent as Boko Haram and other organizations ramped 12 up their violent activities.” Boko Haram has been active in northern Cameroon. The area is near their main base in northeastern Nigeria. The group has killed hundreds of civilians 13 in Cameroon and at least 10,000 in Nigeria over the past few years.
An American defense official said it is not known how long the troops would be in Cameroon. The official said they would stay “as long as (their) presence is requested.”
Words in The News
bottom line – expression conclusion; final decision
key – adj. extremely important
fragile – adj. not strong
deterioration – n. the act or process of becoming worse
core – v. describing the most important or basic part of something
adjustment – n. a change, often small, that improves something or makes it work better
ramp 11 up – expression to increase the size or amount of something; to increase the volume, amount, or rate of something
presence – n. the fact of being in a particular place
- The infantry began to deploy at dawn.步兵黎明时开始进入战斗位置。
- The president said he had no intention of deploying ground troops.总统称并不打算部署地面部队。
- The police were forced to make a tactical withdrawal.警方被迫进行战术撤退。
- They insisted upon a withdrawal of the statement and a public apology.他们坚持要收回那些话并公开道歉。
- The militants have been sporadically fighting the government for years. 几年来，反叛分子一直对政府实施零星的战斗。
- Despite the onslaught, Palestinian militants managed to fire off rockets. 尽管如此，巴勒斯坦的激进分子仍然发射导弹。
- The several parties formed a coalition.这几个政党组成了政治联盟。
- Coalition forces take great care to avoid civilian casualties.联盟军队竭尽全力避免造成平民伤亡。
- They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
- The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。
- Mental and physical deterioration both occur naturally with age. 随着年龄的增长，心智和体力自然衰退。
- The car's bodywork was already showing signs of deterioration. 这辆车的车身已经显示出了劣化迹象。
- This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
- There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
- He has inquired out the deployment of the enemy troops. 他已查出敌军的兵力部署情况。
- Quality function deployment (QFD) is a widely used customer-driven quality, design and manufacturing management tool. 质量功能展开(quality function deployment,QFD)是一个广泛应用的顾客需求驱动的设计、制造和质量管理工具。
- Provides support for developing and deploying distributed, component-based applications. 为开发和部署基于组件的分布式应用程序提供支持。
- Advertisement, publishing, repair, and install-on-demand are all available when deploying your application. 在部署应用程序时提供公布、发布、修复和即需即装功能。
- The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
- The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。
- That driver drove the car up the ramp.那司机将车开上了斜坡。
- The factory don't have that capacity to ramp up.这家工厂没有能力加速生产。
- With the arrival of George Lucas, the pace has ramped up. 随着乔治·卢卡斯的到来，速度大大加快。
- They also sold corporate bonds as the global financial crisis ramped up. 在全球金融危机加剧之际，他们还抛售了公司债券。