George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 180

< 179화 >

“France, huh.”

Air Force One was headed to France. As always, paperwork continued even during the flight. However, what was different from usual was the sheer volume of reports, all due to the massive fire in the Southeast. Even the Chief of Staff looked weary because of it.

“It’s the home of Western cuisine. I personally like French food.”

In fact, in the East, ‘Western cuisine’ mostly meant French food. And that wasn’t exactly wrong. Much of modern Western cuisine originated in France.

Haute cuisine, nouvelle cuisine—they all came from France. The culinary genres that greatly divide cooking, haute cuisine [traditional, elaborate French cuisine] and nouvelle cuisine [a lighter, more modern style], are named after legendary French chefs. The originality and creativity of French cuisine largely stemmed from Nouvelle’s radical way of thinking, which propelled France to become the world’s most powerful culinary nation.

“Western cuisine, my foot. It’s the home of *élan* [spirit or enthusiasm] and surrenders.”

Of course, this is something only those interested in food would know. People more interested in war would only remember the ‘Great French Army era’ and the ‘weakened French Army.’ Somehow, France hasn’t won a war since the Franco-Prussian War.

They continued to suffer defeat after defeat in World War II, the First Indochina War, and the Algerian War of Independence. In short, it was a country marked by a history of defeat. Only recently, in the form of the EU, did they finally achieve a victory of sorts against the Middle East, seemingly washing away their history of defeat. But then they declared a war on terror, starting a war that was like an endless quagmire.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s nothing. I just hope the airport isn’t on strike.”

“Surely an airport wouldn’t go on strike.”

“If you’ve studied history, you’d know. This is that kind of country. They’ll do anything, saying, ‘Are you unhappy with the strike? Then listen to our demands!’ How many revolutions do you think have occurred in that country since the first one?”

“Strikes aren’t always a bad thing. It’s about fighting for the legitimate rights they’re entitled to.”

“You might change your mind if you saw the police going on strike to stop those protests.”

“That’s a bit much, though.”

Even amidst the small talk, he was diligently working. But the pile didn’t seem to be shrinking, all because of the massive fire. They needed to replant trees before it rained. If it rained, there would be landslides, and a significant amount of soil would be lost. However, if the kudzu [a fast-growing, invasive vine] hadn’t burned completely, there wouldn’t be any need to worry. Isn’t it ironic? They spent so much money trying to get rid of the kudzu, and now they can’t remove it!

“We’ll be landing soon.”

Upon landing, Bush immediately moved to the conference hall.

This was an emergency meeting created because the interests of various countries aligned. The participants included all EU member states, the United States, Canada, ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations], which was radically forming a national union system with China and Russia, and Afghanistan and western Iraq.

The common thread among these countries was that they had all been targeted by Middle Eastern Islamic fundamentalist terrorists at least once.

‘If you’re going to call a meeting, you should call it at the G20 meeting.’

Well, right now it was the G20 Finance Ministers’ Meeting, not the G20 summit. They were planning to reorganize it into a summit meeting soon, but now wasn’t the time.

‘I didn’t really want to come in this situation.’

Considering the importance, the fire was more critical, so he came in person, but frankly, he didn’t want to come. What leader would want to go abroad when the Southeast was burning?

‘Ah, that was me.’

Of course, now he wouldn’t play golf or anything unless there was something unusual like now, so there was no chance of that happening. The most ideal thing would be if hurricanes didn’t come at all, but there was no way hurricanes that hit every so often wouldn’t come.

“I will begin the emergency meeting on stabilizing the Middle East.”

That’s how it sounded. ‘I will begin the emergency meeting on the war on terror.’ It was an emergency meeting where the leaders of each country were gathered, and it did not follow the usual meeting rules. Each country could speak freely in a clockwise direction.

The reason they euphemistically expressed it as Middle East stabilization was because they hopefully observed that there would be no terrorism if the Middle East was stable. Of course, since it was a superficial reason, most leaders discussed counter-terrorism measures. Except for Germany, which could be said to be the leading country, they were only dispatching troops to the Middle East and not directly exerting influence. Protecting their own territory was the priority.

Of course, there were rare opinions on Middle East stabilization. Within limits.

For example, strengthening advanced security checks that are not racially discriminatory against Middle Easterners, jointly developing airport security checkpoints, and various ideas such as security enhancement laws were rampant and scattered.

The EU member states had their turn. Their unique ideas ultimately boiled down to one thing: ‘We don’t want to accept any more refugees,’ and ‘Let’s strengthen security checks in various ways anyway.’ That was about it.

Next was Russia’s turn, and since it was the country with the most experience in counter-terrorism, more attention was focused on it than other countries. What kind of measures would they come up with?

However, Vladimir Putin only uttered one sentence.

“We do not negotiate with terrorists.”

Li Keqiang, the next speaker, thought there would be more to say, but Vladimir Putin leaned back in his chair as if he was really done.

People who knew who Putin was, what kind of personality he had, and how Russian counter-terrorism operations worked all reacted as expected. However, those who didn’t know were very embarrassed.

Li Keqiang then said:

“China will maintain the current system.”

China only had a brief period of terrorism in the very early stages and has not experienced terrorism since. The powerful diseases sweeping through China have become a solid armor that even terrorists turn away from, and the disconnection and rationing society, which was no different from martial law, was a society optimized for catching suspicious people like terrorists. In addition, all foreigners, including ethnic minorities, were subject to security checks.

Therefore, an Islamic-led terror could not break out unless it was a terror demanding liberation and independence from ethnic minorities.

Next was ASEAN, but they couldn’t find any significant measures. This was because the terrorists were not foreigners but their own citizens. This was the most troublesome part. The United States was experiencing a similar problem. However, if ASEAN’s terrorism stemmed from Islam, the United States’ problem stemmed from indiscriminate shootings.

However, it was not that they gained nothing at all, and through the appeal of Indonesia, the leading country, they obtained promises of training and technical cooperation from the United States and the EU.

Canada was being hit out of the blue. The reason was that in early 2003, when Paul Martin took office as Prime Minister, he made somewhat radical remarks to gain popularity for political reasons, which became so famous that he properly offended the terrorists. He succeeded in gaining the support of the people but suffered the humiliation of allowing five indiscriminate terrorist attacks.

“We are willing to dispatch Canadian troops to the Middle East.”

This was a statement of determination not to back down against terrorism, and it was also the answer given by the Canadian people. Terrorism was more than enough to draw high support for the war. Of course, it wasn’t a war, but anyway, things had come to this, so Paul Martin had to show something, and the result was this.

If it was a conventional war, the United States or the United Kingdom would have to be attacked first before touching Canada, but the problem was that this was not a conventional war but terrorism. Anyway, they agreed to dispatch the 2nd Mechanized Infantry Brigade, forcibly selected from the 4th Division, and Canada’s turn was over.

While supporting peacekeeping through EU forces, western Iraq carefully requested the usual training cooperation each time in order to guarantee independent national defense. Based on their experience, they emphasized respect for the locals in the Middle East. In western Iraq, problems arise when the military is stationed somewhere, whether it is their own military or a foreign military. Western Iraq was experiencing the problems that inevitably occur when foreign troops are stationed there.

And Afghanistan. Mohammad, who was now quite old, said:

“In order to protect peace in the Middle East, close cooperation with the whole world is necessary.”

This was a statement that was very pleasing to the Western world. Afghanistan was virtually backed by the United States, so in reality, they brought words that the United States would like. Moreover, maybe in about 10 years, but right now, if the United States was not there, the country itself was like a lamp before the wind, so the remarks themselves had to be cautious.

Finally, it was the United States. Every country that received cooperation commented that the United States’ counter-terrorism operations and security policies were not very helpful. This was not because the level of security technology was low, but because the difference in the budget for counter-terrorism operations was serious.

In the case of the United States, the gap and holes between theory and practice were simply filled by hiring more people and increasing the budget. This was only a temporary measure that was only possible now that the budget was overflowing like the milk and honey of Canaan [a biblical reference to abundance], even for the United States.

Of course, they were thinking that once the CCTV infrastructure was established, the budget problem would be resolved to some extent. The crime rate was drastically reduced in places with CCTV, and it became much easier to track criminals.

This program was piloted in Detroit and St. Louis, which are called crime cities.

Thus, the initial statements of all countries were completed. It was now time to move on to free discussion. It could be called the second discussion. In the future, each country’s leader was allowed 20 minutes of free speech, and each country organized the documents with their remarks written on them. Free discussion was not an opportunity that was available at any time. On the other hand, there were also leaders who had already said everything they wanted to say. A typical example was Vladimir Putin, the leader of Russia.

French President Jacques René Chirac was about to speak first.

To be exact, he was about to open his mouth, but he would have spoken if he hadn’t heard the news that simultaneous ‘hijackings’ had occurred in the skies adjacent to Paris, France.

No one knew who it was, but in the midst of the chaos, someone mumbled the word ‘9/11’ in clumsy English.

And that was the trigger.