George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 255

< 254 >

While the Chief of Staff was having an uncomfortable vacation, the President was dealing with his own uncomfortable tasks.

“Another earthquake measuring 9.0 following the 9.1 one?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

Bush, realizing he hadn’t misheard, wore a blank expression. Something was definitely wrong. Although memories faded with time, they shouldn’t fade to the point of completely forgetting such significant events from the start.

“That’s the third one already. The third. Isn’t something wrong?”

Clearly, there was one more expected. However, it was supposed to occur around the end of March, and it was supposed to be between 8 and 9, not a 9.1. The only silver lining was that there hadn’t been a tsunami.

“Although it hasn’t been made public yet, there’s a high probability of another earthquake with a similar magnitude…”

Bush’s question stemmed from a flaw in his memory, and it was also a question to himself. However, the reporter mistook it as a reprimand and abruptly stopped speaking, clamping his mouth shut.

‘What is it? What’s going on?’

For the first time, it wasn’t just a slight deviation but a complete divergence from what he knew, leaving Bush unable to hide his bewilderment and confusion.

Was it a prank by God? Or was this a parallel world where the Earth’s activity was different? Or perhaps the problem was the shale oil extraction that had started earlier than he remembered?

In fact, even before Kim Gap-hwan entered this body, the harmful effects of hydraulic fracturing [a method of extracting oil and gas from shale rock by injecting high-pressure fluid into the well] were under investigation. The reason he clung to gas fracturing was that it showed stability and future potential amidst those concerns.

However, Bush rejected this hypothesis. If shale oil was causing problems for the Earth, the issues should be arising in the United States, not causing earthquakes in South Asia.

‘Okay, fine, let there be earthquakes. Then we need to prepare!’

Without close support from various countries, or just pouring money into it, the economies of Southeast Asia would collapse. Providing such extensive help to other countries was absurd, but if people were dying in droves and he stood by, he wouldn’t even qualify as a human being, let alone a president.

Therefore, Bush made a call to Indonesia. More precisely, it was a call to a place that would go through several procedures to connect him to Indonesia, but ultimately, the call connected him to the current Indonesian President.

Bush had no doubt that she would take his words to heart. To put it in perspective, who would refuse state-of-the-art heavy equipment when they barely had a hand trowel and were already short on hands?

“Are you serious?”

And this was the result.

-Yes, we are. We would like to refuse anything beyond this.

“Are you serious? There’s going to be another one.”

-There are many reasons, but I don’t think I need to explain them myself. I repeat, we want to avoid excessive intervention from the United States.

Bush’s proposal was to ‘restore everything’ destroyed by the earthquake. The United States would bear more than half the cost, with some benefits accruing to them later. Bush didn’t think this was an offer that could be refused.

“Do you want to choose gold or lead? Choose one.”

Bush rarely growled. Gold and lead were metaphors for money and bullets. It could be considered harsh language.

-Gold and lead, you say. Has the US President discovered the secret to transmuting gold that alchemists of the past were so desperate for?

And there was no way she wouldn’t understand it.

“Strictly speaking, I can change it, but I’m not doing it. It’s not cost-effective. But if it’s absolutely necessary, I’ll have to do it.”

Bush decided to take a strong stance. It might seem arrogant, but Indonesia couldn’t dare to ignore the United States. Except for the culture of not being able to determine superiority, Indonesia lagged behind in every aspect based on capitalist standards.

Above all, if a war broke out, no country in the world would be safe from the wrath of the United States. Of course, Bush wasn’t saying he would start a war with Indonesia if they didn’t listen to him, but at least the ‘other party’ thought so. More precisely, they had always thought so.

-Who doesn’t know that? In a world where even graphite can be turned into diamonds, why couldn’t lead be turned into gold? We simply cannot accept it. You know that if this request were to leak out, you would be condemned, right?

However, she was confident. That was because she had the upper hand in terms of justification this time. It was a clear case of interference in internal affairs.

And that was the end of the call.

‘These damn bastards. Is politics more important than the people?’

Well, that was true. Imagine a major earthquake like the South Asia earthquake occurring in South Korea right now, and Japan offering large-scale aid, including relief supplies and infrastructure reconstruction, in the name of humanitarianism.

Maybe in another 100 years, or at least 50 years, there would be people who would welcome it, but who would be happy about it now? They would be lucky if they weren’t treated as traitors at this time when national sentiment was at its peak due to reunification.

However, even if Bush could understand it in his head, his heart couldn’t accept it. What was so great about the state that it impoverished its people?

Well, even North Korea barely started receiving aid, or rather, support, because they had a gun pointed at their heads.

And although he used Korea and Japan as examples, it wasn’t just a matter of pride. It was a matter of excessively increased influence. The influence that the United States had been continuously exerting on Southeast Asia since before Bush’s administration had finally crossed the line during his term.

It was seen as crossing the line into invasion, and in fact, it was somewhat similar. This influence was what Bush had aimed for. Of course, the purpose was different.

Bush couldn’t contain his anger and was about to throw the phone, but he stopped. He thought there was no need to vent his anger on the innocent phone, no matter how angry he was.

And then a sense of powerlessness came over him.

‘Politics. What was politics? Wasn’t it supposed to benefit the people?’

He didn’t want to become overly sentimental. However, even so, something that was shitty was just shitty.

In fact, Bush’s mental state was unstable enough to become overly sentimental for a moment. This was partly because a significant gap had formed in his mind when something completely different from what he knew appeared.

“I’m really going crazy.”

However, he didn’t intend to childishly say, ‘I don’t care about Southeast Asia anymore!’ He simply regretted that he couldn’t help the people of Indonesia.

“It seems like it will be difficult to help in the future.”

It wasn’t a simple matter to overlook. If it weren’t for the Middle East issue, Europe would have imposed quite a few sanctions on this Southeast Asian issue. The influence they were exerting on Southeast Asia was already considerable.

For example, starting with the carrier strike groups stationed in Japan, Korea, and India. Southeast Asia was completely contained by these carrier strike groups. There was even Australia below.

What’s more? Except for the navy, all the weapon systems used for modernization by the army and air force were American-made. In the economic sector, although it was still limited to Vietnam, they were gradually earning a significant amount of foreign currency from simple labor dispatch throughout Southeast Asia. That’s what’s called foreign workers. And the biggest customer among them was undoubtedly the United States.

However, ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] should definitely be grateful to the United States for these aspects. Even in the years when Kim Gap-hwan was flipping through newspapers, ASEAN was not making much progress. If you were to rank national unions, the worst one was undoubtedly Africa.

However, the problem with Africa wasn’t the national union itself, but rather that the countries were all messed up, so the union system naturally became messed up as well.

ASEAN was the same, but strictly speaking, it was in a better situation than Africa in many ways. At least they could try to do something and push it forward, right? Although the United States was putting pressure on them, the fact that they were at least reacting properly to the pressure proved that they were still functioning somehow.

Even though they were aiming for a national union called ASEAN, the countries still treated each other like enemies. But that was a problem that could be solved by gradually getting closer and cooling down their emotions. Or by receiving external stimuli.

In any case, it wasn’t a completely hopeless group. However, if you were to ask if that ASEAN was getting more than India right now, there wasn’t much to say. Bush thought of it as a humanitarian issue rather than a matter of profit.

In fact, he knew to some extent that he wouldn’t interfere in Southeast Asia any further during his term, but thanks to the three earthquakes, which were like a grand slam, Bush’s head was also experiencing an earthquake. Even that would soon become four times, though.

Thinking that far, Bush loosened his tie.

“Good. I’ll just think of it as an opportunity given by God.”

An opportunity to organize Bush’s mindset.

In fact, the conditions Bush had set were also somewhat problematic. Although he would slowly gain profits later and recoup his investment, it ultimately meant using American resources. If he did that, he might avoid being disqualified as a human being, but he would definitely be disqualified as president.

‘I must have been too arrogant. I thought America could do everything.’

Reality was not as easy as he thought. No matter how capitalist a society was, you couldn’t just bully people with money, and you couldn’t do whatever you wanted just because you were strong.

‘On the other hand, it’s okay to say that Southeast Asia is already in America’s grasp.’

This refusal was Indonesia’s last struggle. A struggle to not have its sovereignty taken away.

‘Well, I did give too much aid here and there at the beginning of my term. There are so many complaints about it domestically. I need to cut out what needs to be cut out now.’

However, he didn’t intend to end the projection of overseas influence. If he withdrew now, it would be neither here nor there. He just decided to neatly trim the branches to make it look good.

However, Bush’s love for humanity didn’t allow him to shout America First.

And the fourth earthquake struck Southeast Asia. Its magnitude was 8.2.