George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 291

The Great America of George Bush – 290

< Episode 290 >

***

The long, arduous war in West Iraq had come to an end.

The West Iraqi President, whom the SAS [Special Air Service, a British special forces unit] had been searching for so intensely until just before the end of the war, was found dead alongside two SAS members in the operation zone. Colonel Abbas, the central figure of the coup and the main instigator of this war, was eventually arrested after fierce battles.

Colonel Abbas mocked the European Union to his heart’s content during his war crimes trial and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Due to this war, both Europe and West Iraq experienced losses and gains.

For Europe, it was a classic case of winning the battle but losing the war. The core issue was a backlash against European Union dominance. The goal of the West Iraqi military, specifically Colonel Abbas, was to break away from the EU’s influence.

Therefore, the mere fact that the war occurred caused each member state to lose the trust of its citizens, a sentiment particularly strong among families who had lost loved ones. The plan to slowly establish the EU’s influence throughout the Middle East, using West Iraq as a forward base, was, without exaggeration, a complete failure.

West Iraq became independent in the truest sense of the word, a completely sovereign nation. However, there were disagreements within West Iraq as to whether this was truly the best path for the country. While foreign powers had been completely excluded, all the companies that had been supporting West Iraq’s industry and economy had left.

For the time being, physical assets could not be taken out of the country due to the war, but most of the key personnel had already departed. Although civilians and foreigners had died as a result of the conflict, there were no organized massacres of civilians.

In the case of the integrated forces, this was naturally because they did not want to be tried as war criminals. In the case of the West Iraqi army, it was because they feared that public opinion would turn against them if they harmed civilians. If one had to identify the biggest cause of death in the aftermath, it would be the Tomahawk missile strikes by the US military. In any case, it was a complex war in many ways.

What the United States gained from this war was not yet clear. The actual combat experience amounted to only a day or two’s worth of data, while the losses included 109 drones and 900 Tomahawk missiles.

‘Other countries have clear outcomes, but only the United States is ambiguous.’

Tap, tap.

He muttered unconsciously, repeatedly hitting the ‘a’ key on the keyboard in the newspaper office like a metronome.

“In this case, if we were to speculate not on potential gains, but on what ‘situation’ would be most suitable, it would be as follows.”

For example, a war might break out soon in a place bordering Europe, in other words, in Africa. Or, if not that, then the United States might have to wage war in the Middle East this time, under its own leadership. Or perhaps it might be in South America or Asia. At least it wouldn’t be in the Arctic or Antarctic.

If the desired outcome wasn’t war, then there must have been some political maneuvering that a mere reporter could never understand. Yes, that had to be the case.

How could the loss of billions of dollars be justified simply because they were allies? Yet, it was too subtle to simply attribute it to the wounded pride of the EU. Recently, the United States had been spreading money around to secure and maintain its hegemony, but there were limits to that as well.

‘So, why does it have to be war?’

Reverse thinking. That was the basis of his reasoning. He opened a new horizon of thought under the assumption that what the current administration, and further, the current president, was aiming for was ‘a certain kind of war.’

What could the current president gain if a war broke out? Well, it would depend on which country was the enemy, but there would be commonalities. There would be universal commonalities, even if not absolute. Thinking and pondering in that way, the answer soon came to him.

‘Approval ratings?’

With his re-election secured, his approval ratings were naturally on a gentle downward curve. This natural phenomenon must have seemed extremely unsettling to the president, who was on the verge of pushing for a constitutional amendment.

The quickest and best way to solve this was to divert the public’s attention. If he started a war and packaged it as a somewhat righteous cause, his approval ratings would skyrocket, albeit briefly.

Besides, there was a precedent of the only three-term president pushing for a third term under the pretext of war, so wasn’t the situation a perfect fit?

‘…Come to think of it, if he were going to test the waters to tamper with the constitution, now would be the most appropriate time, but it’s strangely quiet.’

Originally, these things are revealed openly, but this president was being so quiet that it was almost excessive. He even seemed uninterested in the 22nd Amendment [which limits the president to two terms], leaving those who observed him in awe.

At this point, he should have become an actor on stage or in Hollywood instead of being president. Perhaps he was quietly waiting for the people to willingly offer him a third term. Besides, there were people and politicians who openly argued that a third term should be allowed, so what couldn’t the people do if they were determined?

“Damn it. This is no different from a conspiracy theory.”

He was briefly thrilled by the sensational news item that he would have already used in the past, but yellow journalism was now half-dead, like a zombie. While the current president had loosened the reins on the press during his tenure, yellow journalism had to explicitly state that it was yellow journalism in large letters.

And not many people were watching fake news. This was because these news items completely lacked the thrill of possibly being true, and the revenue from this type of news was less than half of what it used to be.

Instead, if something somewhat sensational actually happened, they would keep re-hashing it until a new piece of gossip came along. It was truly a dark age for the press.

The government, on the other hand, was patting itself on the back, saying that the American press was at its cleanest, but if the reporters were to define what they felt in a single word, it would be ‘Is this a country?’

‘Clean my ass. Freedom, the most basic right of the press, is not even guaranteed due to the government’s active intervention, so what kind of press is this? Freedom and licentiousness must be distinguished, but isn’t this too much?’

Even if more fake news was created and misled everyone who saw it, freedom had to be protected. That was the essence of the press. The reporters’ claims might be somewhat absurd, but there had never been such collusion between power and the press in American history as there was now.

The current government suppressed the press under the pretext of removing fake news, eliminating the possibility of distortion and temporarily seizing public opinion. Most of the uninteresting news coming out of the press now was all unedited truth.

Conversely, if the government attempted to manipulate the press, the government’s voice would be unconditionally accepted as truth by the public, who were already too accustomed to the truth, no matter what the content was, until the manipulation was revealed. That’s why the reporters were waiting for this instead.

They thought that if they gathered evidence and waited for the right time to expose it, this barbaric and ignorant oppression would come to an end.

Of course, if the president, who was the one who drew the line between freedom and licentiousness, heard this nonsense, he would try to catch the reporters who still hadn’t come to their senses and tear them to pieces. Besides, even if it wasn’t distortion, public opinion could be manipulated.

That’s because the basis of press manipulation in the information age was ‘throwing it out there.’ Even if you just replaced the existing facts with slightly stronger words and threw them out there, people would bite and tear at each other on their own. Unlike in the past, the press of this era was not the exclusive property of reporters.

Even just looking at the suddenly booming SNS [Social Networking Services], this fact was all too clear. Most of the fake news and yellow journalism flowed in through SNS. Since what individuals posted on SNS was not news but personal opinions, the government could not easily touch it.

Whatever the press was doing, the moment this invaded the personal sphere, it would mean the end of the ‘land of freedom,’ and at the same time, it would be the moment when this country was truly embraced by Big Brother [a reference to the omnipresent surveillance state in George Orwell’s novel *1984*].

‘Looking at the CCTV cameras being installed densely in every alley, it might happen soon.’

The effects of the suddenly increased CCTV and police force were certainly there. Thanks to this, the crime rate was decreasing day by day, but no matter how much I thought about it, I wondered if the security gained at the expense of freedom, the nation’s top value, was meaningful.

Order or freedom? How much freedom must be sacrificed to protect safety? Is the safety gained by sacrificing freedom worth it? Isn’t the guarantee of freedom written in the constitution already being violated several times over?

Questions led to more questions. However, there was no way that a mere reporter could come up with an answer to the debate that had been going on for thousands of years. If that were possible, he would be a senator in Congress, not a reporter at a small to medium-sized newspaper company.

‘I have no idea where the country is going. And I have no idea how my life will change in the future.’

What tormented him was entirely the former, but what the people felt in their skin was mostly the latter. The people’s affinity and antipathy toward the government are determined by their standard of living, regardless of public opinion.

That’s why they protest against the newly enacted and revised policies and laws that appear on TV, and since it is impossible to satisfy everyone in the world, these become indicators of whether they are doing politics well or not.

However, the definition of politics here meant approval ratings. But only reporters were interested in that kind of thing. The middle class and the poor didn’t care about that kind of thing and just wanted the country to make a lot of money.

Where in the world is there someone who doesn’t like money in a capitalist country? But the reality was that there were still people who lived hand to mouth, especially the white poor, who were concentrated in the South.

However, because the president’s background was what it was, things were concentrated in the South, and thanks to the attention of the international community and the appropriate amount of donations due to the great fire that started with the kudzu removal operation, things were being improved here and there.

‘I hope there will be nothing major happening in the South where I live in the future. I hope there will be a dramatic change in my life. I hope the day will come when the press regains its freedom.’

By putting a period there, one piece of news was completed.

‘Come to think of it, it’s funny that someone who criticizes the current press and is still clinging to it, not even putting down his pen, is self-deprecating while getting paid regularly.’

Time passed, and finally, August arrived.

Hurricane Katrina, the soft underbelly of America, the Southern coast. She was approaching.

Ten days earlier than in the original history.