George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 376

The Great America of George W. Bush – Episode 375 (End) (376/377)

January 15, 2009. Washington D.C. 22:00, the White House, East Room.

President George W. Bush’s farewell address.

“Good evening, everyone. As always, I won’t make it too long.”

The moment Bush stood at the podium and began his address, a panorama of past events flashed through his mind.

“Standing here tonight, I am filled with many thoughts about that first night I addressed you from here. It was September 11, 2001.”

The sentence following the greeting coincidentally matched the words Bush had spoken in the original timeline. However, the content that followed was entirely different.

“We witnessed our power that day. We witnessed the power to enforce what we believed was right.

We came to gauge the extent of our power. We truly savored the greatness of the great America, not as empty words or mere propaganda, but with our whole being.

Through Uncle Sam’s dedication [a personification of the American government and people], Afghanistan has risen again today as a fully free and democratic nation. But this may not be why America is truly great. We intervened in the Chinese civil war, which could have escalated into a nuclear war, and we were able to end the civil war with minimal loss of life.

This is also not why America is truly great. We preempted a great war that started in divided Sudan and involved all the countries of North Africa. But even this cannot be the reason why America is truly great.

We continued to expand our military power, eventually possessing a force strong enough to control the entire world with conventional forces alone. But this is also not why America is truly great.”

Bush paused there. The reporters’ expressions were more focused on capturing Bush more clearly than understanding his words.

“The reason America is great is because it has used its power ethically and morally correctly.”

If justice belongs to the majority and the strong, then today’s America is justice itself. It was sufficiently the majority and also the strong. And it held the majority of the world in its hands.

“Every morning, I received briefings on how the world was turning. To quote the words of comics, a treasure born from our great intellect and culture, with great power comes great responsibility. Therefore, we have used our power around the world to wield that great power correctly. And we have planted it.

The world is in our hands. But I am not talking about duty. I am talking about the minimum responsibility that the world’s only hyperpower has, not something sublime.

We must not wield the power we have simply for the benefit of America. If we wield the power we have wrongly, we will perish.”

Who in history has ever given such a farewell address? Don’t they usually instill hope? Even the reporters who were focused on capturing Bush’s image couldn’t hide their bewildered expressions this time.

“Since I promised not to talk at length in the introduction, I will stop here.”

However, whether the reporters were bewildered or not, Bush continued to speak.

“Some have criticized my actions, but the president does not speak through achievements. The president who is most loved by the people is the greatest president.”

Of course, the standard of love here meant approval ratings. It was an insane approval rating of over 80%, even with the metric system enforced.

“I was honored to be the greatest president to you.”

That was truly the end. It was the shortest presidential farewell address in history within the bounds of formality. As Bush was returning to his office, the Chief of Staff approached him.

“It’s over now.”

“There are still five days left in my term.”

“All you’ll be doing is handing things over to your successor and watching the clock.”

Indeed, that was the case.

***

2019. Many incidents that were not revealed in 2008 came to the surface.

The most representative of these was this:

-It has been revealed that India encouraged and supported young Chinese officers during the last Chinese civil war. US President Clinton issued a statement of reproach, saying, “Those allies are driving me to shock…….”

He simply said this about India’s sabotage.

“Ah, so it was those guys.”

This was the reason and answer why the CIA, which had grown excessively large for some reason, couldn’t find anything even after searching Russia like they were catching lice.

A little more time passed, and it was mid-August 2019. There were two foreigners climbing an unnamed mountain in Korea. Well, you could find their names if you looked them up, but at least the locals all called it the back mountain. There was a facility that came out when you went up the straight road, and it was one of the most avoided facilities, a cemetery.

“I’m so curious, I can’t stand it.”

“Then, shall I guess why you came?”

The Chief of Staff. No, Andrew Card, the former Chief of Staff, deliberately turned the conversation away, even though he guessed something. In the first place, if you came this far, you couldn’t help but know.

“Well, you didn’t come to find the legendary… anything, did you?”

“There’s no way.”

The reason he turned the conversation away was because this place was a cemetery.

“We’re here.”

With those words, Bush stood in front of a grave.

“I’ll stay a little further away. I’ll talk to the agents who are peeking out over there.”

The tombstone read:

Kim Kap-hwan.

“Do you see it? You son of a bitch. I did it. You said you were confident you could do better, and the result of your intense desire for an opportunity is this.”

The moment Kim Kap-hwan became Bush, Kim Kap-hwan in this world was no longer a person in this world. He was only guessing that this world might be somewhat different from the world he knew, and the moment he became certain of it was when the Southeast Asian earthquake was more powerful and larger in scale than the original earthquake.

“Dig into what you’ve done.”

It was questionable whether arms and ears existed since he had already become bones and dust.

He got Afghanistan. He transformed it into the free democratic country he had so desired, using every means he knew.

Thanks to that, Europe saw this and invaded Iraq, splitting it in half and eating it little by little, but it became a mess, but it’s hard to see that as Bush’s fault, isn’t it?

In any case, a global refugee crisis was created. It burst to a level that could not even be compared to the original history. Racism at the level of looking at the past emerged in Europe, but it soon ended.

The reason was simple. Middle Eastern refugees were all expelled from Europe. The image of the Middle East remained negative in Europe, but in return, the favorability of other races increased.

The Middle East was rejected, and Europe joined hands with Asia. Asia was actually joining hands with the United States behind it, but in any case, that’s how ‘peace in our time’ came about.

Peace in our time was not just a simple joke. War really disappeared from the earth.

Well, there might be some small-scale local wars in Africa where some tribes participate with cold weapons under mutual agreement, but you can’t call this a war.

The last war was the Middle East war, which was fought under each other’s ideologies, and was finally ended by the United States, led by the Obama administration in 2011.

Everything became outwardly liberal democracy, but in reality, there were more dictatorships. At the same time, it was also the war in which the Kurds finally became independent.

Because Greece was a mess, Europe faced the euro crisis a little later and was just overcoming it.

Turkey was gradually becoming one of the two major powers with Germany, at least in terms of the voice they could make. As a result, an absurd situation occurred in which only Turks were excluded from the Middle East-hating races.

Korea was enjoying its second renaissance and began to export its latest culture, which it had been diligently honing, and China was still too weak to compete with the United States. The war was over for more than 10 years, but the scars of the civil war still remained.

In addition, all the hatred that should have gone to the United States went back to India. It was because India’s tricks were revealed. Therefore, the United States was able to more easily hold the reins of the wild horse called China.

The biggest significance of 2019 was that the United States finally fully adopted the metric system. Well, some still use parts with inch measurements, but at least from this year, all US manufacturers officially produce only metric parts.

Inch parts are produced exceptionally for special purposes only, but they are classified as special purposes, and their value is twice as high as metric parts.

Only one missile battleship came out after Bush left office, and the missile battleship was named after Bush. Regardless of the performance of the missile battleship, the symbolism of the missile battleship as a deterrent was great, and it was usually used to put pressure on a specific country. In addition, it was much cheaper to move a missile battleship than to move an aircraft carrier strike group.

The United States had to make great efforts to maintain its influence. As many as 25 aircraft carrier strike groups were spread around the world and operated, and the F-22 and F-35 were completely replaced as the main fighters. And the first unmanned fighter, the F-40, was unveiled this year.

The F-40 was actually an innovative fighter that combined the technologies accumulated in the F-22 Raptor and F-35 and incorporated unmanned technology, but Bush could only sigh when he saw the news buzzing with ‘various lobbies’. It was said that defective products were used in the engine, but that was a matter that time would reveal.

Some things changed and some things didn’t. Abe was still in power in Japan, and as oil prices rose again, Russia recovered to its previous state. Rather, it was becoming more and more powerful as time went by, as if it were releasing its pent-up resentment.

“Did you know? What you’ve done? Even God couldn’t have imagined that a mere construction foreman could do this much.”

Bush laughed at that point. Then, the small laughter turned into an explosion that echoed throughout the cemetery, and the bodyguards all stared as if they thought they had eaten the wrong mushrooms.

He laughed and laughed again, then sighed with the sorrow of the past. Bush opened the lid of the soju [Korean distilled rice liquor] he had been carrying since he came up, and poured it into a glass. Waiting for the ripples in the glass to subside, he watched it intently, then picked it up and said, putting his memories and impressions into the glass of alcohol.

“I could do it.”

The tasteless alcohol soaked the grave.