George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 190

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Christmas. Jesus’ birthday. More accurately, it’s a day to celebrate the birth of Jesus, though most people who aren’t particularly religious simply know it as Christmas. Even Bush, who’s usually buried in documents, sets everything aside on this day to… well, he doesn’t exactly celebrate in the traditional sense. He grinds up a turkey in a food processor and drinks it.

Then he returns to his documents. The difference now is that the stack is nearly twice as high, his consumption of energy drinks and coffee has increased exponentially, and dark circles are firmly entrenched under his eyes.

“We might be able to wedge our influence into western Iraq.”

Western Iraq would eventually become independent from the EU. Whether it would then become a spokesperson for the EU, as it is now, or exploit its unique geopolitical position to extract as much as possible from the First World – like South Korea during the Cold War, becoming a pillar of the international community – remains to be seen. But in either case, the U.S. needed to establish some degree of influence within the western Iraqi government.

Just as he was pondering how to achieve this, the old man appeared.

This old man has no name. More precisely, an administratively registered name exists, but it isn’t his real one. So, needing a designation, the CIA gave him a code name:

‘Western Iraq John Doe.’

In the English-speaking world, this is a name commonly given to unidentified individuals, especially in the U.S., where it’s often used for unidentified corpses.

‘Quite morbid. Anyway, it’s certain that this person will have a strong voice in western Iraqi politics.’

If he could be won over…

“Mr. President, Riga has collapsed.”

The relatively leisurely Christmas began to devolve into a complete mess with the Chief of Staff’s words.

“What?”

You know how sometimes in dramas, there’s a scene where someone chokes while drinking tea or coffee and spits it out or drops the cup? Bush always thought that was an exaggeration. But it seemed that wasn’t entirely the case. He didn’t drop his coffee cup, but he did choke and cough for a while.

“It’s exactly as I said. Riga has collapsed. ‘All the buildings in Riga have burned down, and the beautiful old city has become ruins. Even the warships patrolling the river caught fire, and one had to be scrapped.’ That’s what they’re saying. They’re calling it scrap, but they probably haven’t even salvaged it yet.”

“Fire? Was there a large-scale riot or something?”

Frankly, he thought a riot was plausible. Forcibly cornering and isolating them was one thing, but what followed was the real problem. Because Riga was the city that was shut down, Latvia faced serious budget issues and had to rely entirely on the help of Lithuania and Estonia.

Even this wasn’t inherently a problem. The Baltic states were all economic powerhouses. Although they had shrunk somewhat due to the virus, they had been achieving remarkable economic growth since emerging from the Soviet Union.

That’s right. Past tense. They ‘were’ growing. The problem started when they brought in a large number of people from the Middle East, like Latvia. The origin of germs, including SARS, was China, but it evolved into a new, more virulent disease in the Middle East: ‘Super SARS.’

This was the core issue. By the time the nature of this disease was understood, it had already deeply infiltrated the country. Construction workers, as well as half the members of parliament, were bedridden, and by the time they tried to act, the administration was collapsing on a large scale. Estonia and Lithuania were in a state of panic.

Nevertheless, Estonia and Lithuania managed to cope. They requisitioned several buildings according to procedure, converted them into hospitals, and sequentially isolated and accommodated all patients, successfully separating the disease from society.

By the time more people were dying from overwork than from the disease, they were able to return everything to normal. There may be some ambiguity in the word ‘normal’ because the administrative and economic sectors suffered enormous damage, but everything was moving according to instructions, so it was normal. At least, there was no anarchy like in Riga, or a situation where people didn’t listen to the public authorities.

Therefore, looking at Estonia and Lithuania, Latvian public opinion coalesced around the idea that, ‘If we lift this closure, we’re done for.’ The government, swayed by public opinion, and everyone who didn’t live in Riga, maintained the closure indefinitely.

Not everyone agreed. Latvia was a small enough country, and many people had relatives in Riga. Nevertheless, the public opinion to completely close Riga took over the government. It was only natural, since those who were going to escape from government officials had already escaped long ago.

The government had tried to help, but the budget was absolutely insufficient. Even after squeezing out all available funds, it was simply impossible to classify all the nearly hundreds of thousands of infected people.

So they isolated them. That was the best the Latvian government could do.

“Then what happened to the support we provided? Or rather, what about the EU?”

“It doesn’t seem to have had much of an impact. And the EU, you say?”

Aren’t the Baltic states members of the EU? Of course, he knew that the Baltic states had a solid alliance system to the level of a community of destiny, but since they were members of the EU, shouldn’t Germany be providing full support? Above all, they should know best how much it would cost if the disease started to leak elsewhere. But the support going to Latvia was as meager as that from the distant United States.

“No, Latvia is in the EU… Oh, damn it.”

Bush realized his mistake at that point. He realized he was seriously mistaken.

It was both right and wrong that Latvia was in the EU. To be precise, Eastern European countries began to join the EU en masse from 2004, and Latvia was one of them. In Bush’s memory, Latvia was an EU member, but it was still 2003. Therefore, Latvia was not yet in the EU.

‘Was it a problem that I was only focused on domestic affairs? I should have noticed when I thought it was strange.’

Isn’t knowledge something that is not eternal but is forgotten and distorted over time? He should have noticed from the fact that the EU was quiet. Currently, all of America’s capabilities were focused on fire recovery in the Southeast, domestic quarantine, and quarantine in the Middle East and Africa.

The Middle East and Egypt were difficult, but Africa was effective, and Turkey was receiving full cooperation from the EU. In the case of China, they were bringing back their citizens who had gone abroad. South Korea, which had somehow managed to manage infectious diseases with its excellent quarantine system, could not avoid this time. Many Super SARS infections occurred in Busan and Seoul, and some infections appeared in Pyongyang, North Korea.

However, unlike South Korea, North Korea was able to truly and permanently isolate those infected. Some people in poor condition were buried alive without anyone knowing. Similar patterns were occurring in China, and apart from Li Keqiang’s will to avoid dirty work, the Communist Party was using all means to prevent major cities from being breached.

“No, is it already too late?”

Bush acknowledged that he was cornered and ruffled his hair. He couldn’t bring himself to crumple the documents he was holding.

“Should we prioritize vaccine development?”

“What? Yes. No. No, yes. That’s right. Vaccine is the top priority.”

As one thing went wrong, the plans he had built up in his head collapsed one after another like dominoes and were completely ruined. He was planning to resolve this situation within a year anyway. The longer the epidemic plagued the world, the more difficult it would be for the United States.

‘How can the economy I created be ruined by a virus? Is this the karmic retribution for exploiting China’s blood? Did we prosper with China, so we will perish with China?’

Don’t be ridiculous. He had no intention of letting it go. Bush gritted his teeth so hard that they were about to break. He felt a stimulating and metallic taste on his tongue. Blood must have been flowing out from between his gums. Once the blood that had gathered in his head drained away, his dirty, muddy thoughts cleared, and the dead logic revived and swam.

‘No, plans are meant to be broken and rebuilt. It would have been stranger if things had gone according to plan until now.’

“I understand. I’ll organize it and bring it to you.”

The Chief of Staff rose from his seat. Although he didn’t express it outwardly, his mind was also quite chaotic. He sighed at the thought of the budget that would be drained and the documents that would increase. Looking at a cat staring at those pathetic humans, he even thought, ‘What am I doing now? Is everything going wrong?’

“Three months.”

Because he was having such random thoughts, it was only natural that he questioned the President’s words as if he were puzzled.

“Yes?”

“Three months. Tell them to try to make a vaccine within three months.”

“Three months? Even I, who am an amateur, know that three months is too short. But three months?”

As he said, is a vaccine something that can be developed and produced in a factory like a pen just by giving billions of dollars and urging them on? In fact, even a pen is not just made instantly, but it is certainly easier to develop and produce than a vaccine.

In any case, a vaccine was certainly the most complex procedure, the most sensitive storage method, and the most time-consuming thing that mankind has ever created. In particular, viruses must be cultured before any experiments can be done, right? And what if a faulty vaccine comes out because we only pursue ‘quickly, quickly!’ too much?

In the first place, vaccines were the culmination of human medicine, sometimes taking decades to develop. Therefore, three months was an absurd outrage, no different from the delusions of some amateurs.

“At least six months. That’s right! We have to wait six months. Or at least get the opinion of an expert…”

“No!”

Yet Bush insisted on three months. Illogical, absurd! No matter how you think about it, it doesn’t make sense. The Chief of Staff was so embarrassed that if other people heard it, they would finally think, ‘Has the President gone crazy?’

“It’s unconditionally three months.”

However, Bush also had his own rational reasons for pushing for three months. First of all, the vaccine was already ‘under development.’ Since it was under development, there would be enough samples to use for experiments. Next, unlike ordinary vaccines, the ‘entire world’ was invested in this Super SARS.

“It’s already underway, but make sure to seek cooperation from all research institutes around the world.”

And finally, three months was the last line of defense that he could somehow endure. Even today, on Christmas, every movie theater was seeing losses. Soon, the streets would become increasingly deserted. The implications of such a shrinking economy were all too simple.

‘The Super SARS itself has already had the entire world working on it for four months. I’m just adding acceleration to it. Otherwise, the United States, and by extension the world, will fall into a state of panic.’

If he squandered money like this, there would be some aftereffects, but it was far better than falling into an economic panic.

“Understood! It’s three months! Unconditionally three months!”

Thus, Bush’s declaration of war spread throughout the world.