George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 219

< Episode 218 >

“Do you want a positive answer? Or a negative one?”

“A negative one.”

“They will quickly realize the President’s intentions and end this meaningless game of low oil prices. And unfortunately, they won’t issue bonds. That way, they can threaten us again with oil prices in the future. It’s about taking a step back for a bigger opportunity.”

“I’m not as pessimistic as you are. Frankly, I’m confident they will issue treasury bonds.”

“There aren’t many things the President is completely sure of. Why do you think so?”

Of course, the answer was because he had seen the future, but he couldn’t say that. However, Bush had become thoroughly accustomed to cleverly evading or disguising such answers. It wasn’t that difficult.

“It’s a very simple answer. They can’t give up oil, no matter what.”

It wasn’t difficult to make anything sound plausible. Anyone could do it with a little knowledge related to the field of lies and the strong power to suppress rebuttals or questions. The insane amount of paperwork was more of a problem than that.

Those things couldn’t be handled with shallow knowledge. But with the help of his aides, he was somehow pushing forward. He could see why Bush in the original history was swayed by his aides with just their rhetoric.

“That’s an obvious answer.”

In fact, Bush’s answer was perfectly correct this time. If they let go of oil, Saudi Arabia would be ruined. That’s why they might gamble on the fate of the nation. Rather, there was no reason not to. Saudi Arabia’s *raison d’être* [reason for existence] was being the world’s largest oil producer, and if they lost that position, they would also lose a significant portion of their right to adjust oil prices.

If that happened, it would be no exaggeration to say it was the end. They chose to face the approaching sandstorm head-on rather than quietly withering away. No, they had no choice. In a situation where they would fall to their death if they went backward on a steep cliff and be slaughtered by the enemy if they went forward, wouldn’t it be better to resist, even if just a little?

“We might lose at first, but we’ll eventually win. And that’s when the real beginning starts.”

There was nothing more to see in this case. This was the end for now. And Bush turned his eyes back to the damn documents. That day, there were unfamiliar words scattered everywhere. It was in the field of biotechnology, where Bush had ordered a huge budget investment to show results, and something had come up, but it was hard to understand.

“Damn it. Have someone from that field brought in.”

And originally, he was just planning to stimulate innovation with budget input, but it seemed like he needed to give some hints.

‘But even if I give hints, will it go the way I want?’

Even the hints that Bush knew were all he had seen in newspaper articles. Even then, he didn’t remember everything, and only a few key parts were clear in his memory. If the person who read it was a related worker or at least had a master’s degree, they could reproduce it sufficiently, but there was no way that George W. Bush, who had never been involved in biotechnology in his life, or the construction foreman mixed into this body, could reproduce it.

Besides, even if he had the ability to do so, Bush had a task that was dozens of times more important than that. Of course, if biotechnology developed, many people suffering from diseases would be saved. Maybe he could lower the price of these drugs a little, and he might also be able to create new life forms. No matter what anyone said, biotechnology had infinite possibilities.

But that was when he looked at the rosy, pink future, and in reality, there were more important things than biotechnology. The jobs of hundreds of thousands of workers that could disappear if he didn’t approve them right away. Administrative tasks that could no longer proceed because approval wasn’t coming from above. These things could kill people right away. They could easily drive those desperate in reality to suicide.

‘Gene editing. How do I explain this?’

While contemplating word choices, his eyes suddenly went to the small globe on his desk. The globe on the desk in the office usually had the United States facing forward, or Korea facing forward. Then, if there was a country he was interested in, he would turn it around one by one.

“Ah, wait.”

“Yes?”

“What happened to the Korean Peninsula?”

In Pyongyang, crowds had finally gathered at the border to bring down the corrupt Communist Party. Even in North Korea, where everything was going to hell, there were a few things that were working properly. One of them was national defense. Specifically, Pyongyang’s defense. This was possible when they were receiving full support from the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist Party.

Even during the Korean War, about 50 years ago, they had tanks that South Korea couldn’t even dream of. Anyway, it was obvious that they could have faced off at least once until the 70s and 80s when the Soviet Union was still relatively strong.

As of 2004, there was an overwhelming difference, but there was one place in North Korea that was in no way inferior to South Korea’s power.

Pyongyang. The heart of North Korea, the largest and wealthiest city in North Korea, where all resources generated from all over North Korea are concentrated. At the same time, it is the city where the leadership and their children live. And finally, it is also the place where the leaders and generals they will serve forever are buried.

A small number of elite strong soldiers who have never had their training postponed or their supplies dropped. Anti-aircraft guns that are as densely packed as the stars in the sky. The nuclear bunkers built for a leadership with some paranoid obsessions were key elements that made it possible to defend Pyongyang no matter what happened.

Conversely, Pyongyang, which was thoroughly designed assuming that South Korea and the United States would invade, was no exaggeration to say that it was an impregnable fortress built of concrete and a bunker made into a city. In other words, it was not a city that some ‘rioters’ could break through.

“No matter what, this is impossible. They are our people. We could be held accountable later. To put it simply, we’ll end up dying as old men in the back room after reunification! Isn’t our party here to prevent that?”

“That’s something a few people can just take with them politically when they die. What are you so afraid of? This is an opportunity. The South Korean government will outwardly hate this, but inwardly, they’ll welcome it quite a bit. We’re taking the initiative to remove the thorn in their side, aren’t we? A very large and painful thorn that will last for several generations.”

Before he knew it, South Korea had become South Korea. As long as they were yielding, they had to build up some achievements to secure a proper position, right? Everyone was lobbying, but those who were accustomed to North Korean-style hospitality, where they had to devote their bodies and souls with all their heart and soul, felt that it was not enough. This was similar in South Korea, but the level of hospitality they were thinking of was a bit different in fundamental ways.

“The South Korean army has already entered. We opened the door. There’s no turning back now, and there’s nothing more to see. Unification is just around the corner. It’s not the communist unification that Kim Jong-il or the leaders dreamed of, but at least we won’t see the fratricide of 50 years ago.”

They had to do something very big to maintain their current position. There had to be legitimacy, justification, and support for this area to be under their rule for the time being. And they would use that as a stepping stone to move up to the government. And thanks to the Constitution of the Republic of Korea, they would be able to create a party or so.

This was the glorious revival of the Communist Party that they were thinking of. Of course, they wouldn’t be shouting about communism.

“Explosions have some… masculinity. It stimulates primal violence. And men instinctively love violence. I don’t know why. Most of them do. Is there anyone among our soldiers who hates explosions?”

This might sound a bit random, but the people sitting in this seat roughly understood what it meant.

“Some outdated weapons may have misfired or exploded during the riot suppression process… This has nothing to do with me.”

Those who wanted to overthrow the party were gathering in Pyongyang from all over the country. Their march was clearly visible even by satellite. Of course, the South Korean army, which was diligently delivering rice, was also visible. There were times when the march was discovered, but it was quickly silenced with various luxury goods. Those who didn’t were humanely detained. It was quite ridiculous, but they were clearly at war.

Everyone would remember. It wasn’t just Kim Jong-il worshippers who marched to Pyongyang. They marched to Pyongyang as fast as the Kim Jong-il worshippers. There was no difference between them. They were wearing worn-out clothes with traces of hardship and dirt. All of them were unpleasantly old due to at least 13 years and up to 40 years of military service or labor such as farming, and they were holding farming tools, which could be said to be their only property.

Some, rarely, had guns instead of farming tools, but they were not the standard-issue Type 68 or Type 88 automatic rifles, but mostly Type 49 submachine guns and Arisaka rifles. In other words, they were Mosin-Nagants and North Korean-made PPSh-41s received as military supplies from the Soviet Union or China.

And among them, very few, were remnants of the old Japanese army, Type 38 or Type 99 rifles. Supplies used in the Korean War still remained deep in the fields. These were some of them. The rest were forgotten in people’s memories or confiscated as soon as they were discovered. In other words, it was no exaggeration to say that almost all the guns that people could get in North Korea were gathered here.

“You ungrateful bastards who wouldn’t be enough even if I put a spatula in your mouths and harvested all the corn! How can you not know that the very reason you reactionary bastards are alive is thanks to the wide and vast grace of General Kim Jong-il, like the sea!”

“The grace of the wide sea? Huh, I know that the sea is wide, but do you know that the creatures living in the sea account for only 2% of the total proportion of life on Earth? You ignorant bastards! You humans with narrow vision! You are the ones who made this country like this. You bastards are the ones who made our country the poorest country in the world!”

They were almost trying to kill each other. No, they were just trying to kill each other. It is said that war occurs when ideologies conflict with each other, but in reality, that has rarely happened. At best, it was the religious wars or the wars that occurred after the United States and the Soviet Union almost divided the world after World War II.

In reality, war is driven by profit rather than ideology. The main questions are, ‘Can the country properly exceed the break-even point when it strikes the enemy country?’ or, ‘Can the goal be achieved somehow without war?’ Even ideology is only superficial.

And now, two groups are about to clash entirely on ideology alone. Those awakened by capitalism and the eternal henchmen created by the dictatorship were ready to shed blood to prove the correctness of their ideology. The heat rising from the people was more than enough for the prelude to war, and soon the rusty trigger made by 50 years of time seemed to be pulled with a chilling sound in a dual sense.

“You bastards! How dare you set fire in sacred Pyongyang! Let’s see if you can stand up to us. I’ll show you exactly what it’s like to fight so that you can’t even pick up your bones!”

If it weren’t for the elite troops of the Pyongyang Defense Command belonging to the Security Command.

After all the armies were dismantled, and after Kim Jong-il fainted and was increasingly treated like an old man in a room, the elite defense forces belonging to the Security Command, which had become the most powerful force after the status of the State Security Agency plummeted, had nothing to fear. If it was just the ‘authority’ they had, it was the most powerful army in history. They had the authority to bomb the entire North Korea and turn it into hell, as long as they had the justification that they were protecting Pyongyang.

To be precise, the General Political Bureau was above them, but they didn’t have the power to stop the people who were right in front of them. Originally, no matter how strong and strict the law is, isn’t it true that the fist becomes stronger than the law when the fist gets closer?

“All troops, prepare for battle!”

Live ammunition was loaded into the personal firearms of all soldiers. The tanks pointed their cannons at the crowd, and well-maintained heavy machine guns in the trenches and outposts were ready to form a perfect killing zone with a crossfire net.

“Reactionary bastards who defy the Party! Wipe them all out!”