George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 124

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“Do newspapers even cover this kind of stuff these days?”

Bush finished reading an article about a drunk causing a ruckus on the highway, getting into a fight with a bartender’s brother, and ending up with a ten-week injury. Unable to afford the hospital bills, he was completely ruined. Bush, also lacking any immediate solutions, felt uneasy about the healthcare problem, which he couldn’t quite tackle.

Of course, it wasn’t entirely impossible to do something. However, considering how much had already been altered in less than a year, touching anything more would likely overwhelm the Bush administration. If the results weren’t good, they’d only invite criticism for making unnecessary changes.

More than anything, he was approaching a point where he’d have more enemies than allies. The vested interests don’t particularly like leaders who constantly challenge laws enacted for their benefit or those they frequently exploit.

Even though Bush was a Republican, not all of them necessarily followed him. The reason Bush kept Dick Cheney, whom he found difficult, as Vice President was because Bush wasn’t confident in controlling the entire Republican Party alone.

In fact, the term ‘control’ wasn’t quite the right word. ‘Persuasion’ would be more accurate. Because even a single misstep could trigger a political disaster, it was more like a precarious adventure than control.

To be honest, everyone in the Federal Assembly was captivated by the immense wealth generated by the Bush administration’s policies. As the saying goes, gold easily blinds people. The members of the Federal Assembly were no different. The only people who could criticize the Bush administration now were those who valued principles over personal gain.

But in a country where lobbying and political appointments were legal, how many people truly disliked personal gain? That’s not to say that the Federal Assembly members were money-crazed lunatics. The country was seemingly running well, approval ratings were decent, and money was flowing in, so there was no compelling reason to condemn Bush.

Therefore, paradoxically, those who didn’t benefit from these advantages had no choice but to criticize Bush. For example, high-ranking state police officials who were undermined by Bush’s policies, or former police officers who were laid off due to newly created standards.

“The media always looks for sensational gossip. Thanks to the President disrupting the status quo, they have to write articles based on facts, so they eagerly jump on stories like this.”

“Reading these stories makes me want to crack down on our public officials.”

“Could you explain how you arrived at such a transcendent conclusion?”

The Chief of Staff maintained his composure as if Bush’s unconventional remarks were nothing new. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t dumbfounded.

“Isn’t it common sense that the more comfortable public officials are, the more uncomfortable the lives of the people become? That’s why you and I are working like dogs.”

“The wording is a bit harsh, but that’s about right.”

In reality, neither of them could easily leave work. Well, in Bush’s case, even if he did go home, he’d eventually end up sleeping at the White House, so having to go back to the office immediately if something came up was a unique burden.

“We can’t enjoy something this good just between ourselves.”

However, both Bush and the Chief of Staff were still human, so they weren’t purely concerned about the country. It was a give-and-take affection stemming from the idea of ‘I can’t be the only one suffering!’ The problem was that the affection took the form of work, but it was American-style camaraderie. It was only half-filled with the twisted soul of someone who would be second to none when it came to working hard.

“Right? I think so too.”

The problem was that they were already working intensely enough. It was true that there were some leisurely departments. But since this was a time when infrastructure was being massively replaced, most public institutions were incredibly busy.

“So, how about extending the working hours a bit, even if it means raising the salaries of public officials a little more?”

Increasing working hours might allow them to finish more work in the short term, but the more working hours increase, the more it wears people down, and work efficiency significantly drops the next day.

“It would be a problem if working hours increased and salaries decreased, but since salaries would also increase, wouldn’t it be okay?”

“Extending working hours is legally quite difficult. Moreover, the efficiency isn’t good either.”

Laws could be interpreted in various ways, but forcing people to work wouldn’t make things run smoothly. Of course, if they were passionate individuals who voluntarily worked overtime, it wouldn’t matter at all, but how many such people are there in the world? People who want to work without pay and only with passion are the kind of people you can only find in fairy tales.

“Then what should we do?”

Many people might not be able to tell whether they were listening to a ruthless boss or the president of a country, but that’s what administration is all about. ‘How to achieve high efficiency with limited resources?’ is the core of national administration, and it’s the beginning and end of budget management.

“You should increase the number of personnel instead.”

“Increase it even more? It might be manageable now with a generous budget, but we won’t be able to handle it later.”

They put aside the reports they had to read and continued the discussion for over an hour, but ultimately, they couldn’t reach a conclusion.

“Well, it would be great if we could solve one of humanity’s difficult problems with such a simple conversation just by putting our heads together for an hour.”

In fact, if a clear equation that could solve one of humanity’s difficult problems could be derived just by putting their heads together for an hour, they would have to implement iron-fisted politics. Why would they need democratic politics, a two-party system, or members of Congress?

“Let’s move on to international issues after dealing with domestic issues.”

He placed his arm on the mountain of reports. Clearly, reading the reports should have reduced the pile, but no matter how much he read, it remained the same height. Of course, if it was night in America, it would be day on the other side of the world, wouldn’t it? Even while Bush was taking naps in the White House residence, the paper skyscraper seemed to remember its past as a tree, growing taller and taller towards the ceiling of the office.

“Actually, there’s nothing much happening internationally.”

By ‘nothing much,’ he meant that there were no new developments that Bush needed to pay particular attention to. China was experiencing economic difficulties, the Middle East was fracturing, and Europe was sending more troops to the Middle East. The EU faced the problem they had been ignoring after the US at the UN said, ‘Aren’t you managing the Middle East properly!’ and the EU’s answer was more budget and troops.

This wasn’t entirely useless, as security was improving the more troops were deployed. But, as expected, the Middle East continued to produce endless refugees. The limit of direct influence they could project was western Iraq.

The EU didn’t officially say it, but European leaders were secretly pressuring Middle Eastern countries to stop producing refugees. The problem was, why would Middle Eastern countries willingly stop the outflow of refugees?

Some countries were even in the midst of civil war, so would refugees even be a concern? They were focusing all their capabilities on the military and control. Whether this was fortunate or unfortunate, western Iraq, which could be called the EU’s offshoot, was right next to the Middle Eastern countries. They were refraining from using unsportsmanlike weapons like white phosphorus during the suppression of rebels as much as possible. This was because the EU might intervene under the pretext of weapons of mass destruction. Therefore, they were responding with conventional weapons and tactics, albeit somewhat cumbersome.

In fact, one of the reasons the EU was increasing its military was to intervene more directly in the Middle East. They believed that the reason refugees were coming out of the Middle East was because the Middle East was in chaos. Therefore, the EU became indiscriminate in its methods to end the chaos in the Middle East.

The expectation was that the refugees currently swarming all over Europe would return to the Middle East once it became peaceful. In fact, it wasn’t just a vague expectation, but there was some logic to it. Once the Middle East became completely peaceful, refugees could no longer be ‘refugees.’

Basically, refugee status is based on Article 33, Paragraph 1 of the UN Refugee Convention, which can be summarized as follows: Those who have a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, are outside the country of their nationality and are unable or, owing to such fear, are unwilling to avail themselves of the protection of that country.

The important thing here is ‘unreasonable fear of persecution.’ If they lose their qualification as refugees, they are merely illegal immigrants who can no longer be called refugees. Of course, administration wouldn’t actually work this extremely, but it also meant that even if they were to harshly pressure them to return to their now peaceful home countries, there would be no problem under international law.

Therefore, the EU cited ‘peace in the Middle East’ as the key to solving the current crisis and was pouring astronomical amounts of money into the military it was sending to the Middle East and the reconstruction of western Iraq’s underdeveloped infrastructure. Of course, the government of western Iraq didn’t simply use the aid it received from the EU for infrastructure reconstruction.

Western Iraq had always dreamed of an independent western Iraq that was free from the EU’s influence, so it invested a lot of money in the military as well. However, the EU, which had been aware that refugees were constantly being generated from western Iraq due to insanely high taxes but had been ignoring it due to performance promotion and face-saving issues, began to send advisory committees in earnest to whip them into returning to a normal country, so the dream of an independent country flew further away, and unnecessary taxes were boldly abolished.

“But isn’t it strange?”

“What do you mean?”

“The grizzly bear of Siberia is quiet.”

From the Tatar yoke [a period of Mongol rule over Russia] and the Grand Duchy of Moscow to the Tsarist Russia era, and even after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia had always had eventful years.

“There’s a saying that you should be wary of quiet people.”

In this case, it wasn’t a person but a country that was quiet, but the meaning was the same. Above all, there was no way Russia would be quiet now. It had suffered the Red Square terror [a terrorist attack in Moscow’s Red Square] just a few months ago and had laid the groundwork for projecting influence in the Middle East, but it was unable to make a big noise externally due to internal problems. But the problem was that if there wasn’t even a big noise internally, he thought there was a real problem.

Seeing that even the media was quiet after several days, it was by no means a problem with America’s intelligence capabilities. Moreover, it was even more so when he recalled who was in power in Russia now.

“Russia must be preparing something.”

“Then I’ll look into Russia.”

“Isn’t the CIA busy? They’re doing everything they can to rebuild the intelligence network in China.”

“The CIA has a surprising number of talented people. And they have to work as much as they get paid.”

That day, an order was issued to the CIA to earn their keep.