George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 281

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* * *

“Colonel Abbas, are you really going to do this?”

The black muzzle of the M4 came into view. The M4 was an unfamiliar weapon. The Iraqi soldiers they remembered carried AK series rifles or Eastern Bloc weapons.

Belatedly, he realized that it was an Iraqi version of the M4, modified based on the military’s requirements. Not a purebred, but a hybrid, the most suitable AR series personal weapon for the Middle East.

Everything had changed from the days when they unconditionally pledged allegiance to the government. The equipment, the people, even the basic policy had changed. Only now did he realize this!

“Don’t worry. With this, Iraq will break free from being a protectorate and stand again as a truly independent nation.”

“Are you really going to plunge the country into a hopeless war?”

“Your country, maybe! Not our country! I would gladly watch this false Iraq burn to ashes and leave nothing but cinders.”

The President of West Iraq laughed as if he were about to suffocate.

“This is a funny character! How can there be a people without a nation?”

“There can’t be a nation without a people!”

“I won’t deny that. But do you really not understand? It’s an emergency situation! The weakened people needed a fence! If we had stayed as we were, we would have truly fallen into being a protectorate of the Western world, just as you said. We did our best! We took the economy away from those eager but foolish people and started running it properly, and the military can perfectly respond to foreign invasions! The equipment we received was overwhelmingly large in quantity, but in reality, it was cheap! Welfare? As much as you want! I just admit that in the process of development, we can no longer escape the influence of the Western world. But there isn’t a single country like that in the world! Our government did its best!”

The President of West Iraq poured out words like a waterfall, as if in a desperate struggle. How could the president not know the situation his country was in? With enough reasons piled up, a coup d’état had now occurred.

The President really did his best in everything. To fulfill his duty, to reclaim the country, he had only taken a step back for a moment. Frankly, it was too wide to call it a step, but he really had no choice. As proof, hadn’t he revived the economy?

“Instead, you sold the people!”

Colonel Abbas retorted. He brushed aside the pathetic excuses of the ruler with the spirit and roar of a soldier, wiping away the absurd justifications.

“Look at the streets! There isn’t a single Iraqi company on the billboards or advertisements! Even if there is, the parent company is a foreign company, or a multinational corporation that can leave at any time! There isn’t a single Iraqi company! You say you saved the economy? Go into the factories! Iraqi people are working while being insulted by foreigners! While you were eating salads made by your damn personal chef, they were picking grass to eat because they had no money!”

He was beaten. The ‘economy’ was saved. This itself was not a lie. To be exact, one word was missing in front of it. The ‘country’s’ economy was saved.

“Huh, do you think you can manage everything according to ideals? Do you think such a utopia is possible?”

He even abandoned his pretense as president. He quietly stared into each other’s eyes, completely agitated. The colonel’s eyes were like a deep, bottomless well. At least, that’s what the president thought. And from experience, those eyes were the eyes of a madman.

“Yes. Maybe you can. But do the people around you think the same way?”

“Probably not. I tend to rely on emotions a bit, but I’m not someone without a sense of reality. Eight out of ten are just fools who have blurred their eyes with vague nationalism, and the ambitious ones just want a seat in the government led by the military.”

“How hypocritical. Then what’s different between you and me? I ended the war, but you’re starting one.”

“Do I look like I’m doing a ‘I’m clean!’ protest right now? Or do I look like I’m at a university debate? The vested interests will change. All administrative systems will be reorganized around the military. And for about 10 years, we’ll be staggering in post-war reconstruction.”

“Huh, you know it well.”

“But the most important thing is that the civic consciousness will change. And at least we’ll eat the bread we give, not the bread foreigners throw at us. We’ll move voluntarily, not by coercion.”

“You’re talking nonsense. What do you mean by voluntarily? How is being caught up in this war the people’s will?”

“It’s because you castrated the people’s will. This is just the process of reattaching that will.”

The conversation between the president and the colonel ran parallel.

“And let me tell you again. Mr. President, this is not a debate, it’s a coup.”

Before he knew it, the colonel was holding a Beretta 92 in his hand. Just for a moment, the muzzle was aimed at the president’s forehead. At best, it was just one more muzzle. Even smaller than the M4s aimed by the colonel’s loyal subordinates, but this muzzle was different.

Unlike the other muzzles, it would definitely spit fire.

Perhaps it was because of the perfect stillness where no one moved, or perhaps it was a hallucination created by the president’s brain sensing the end, but he thought he heard the sound of the trigger spring, but it stopped midway.

“No.”

The colonel switched the safety of the pistol to safe, then slowly put it back into the holster.

“Everything will be done through a fair trial, and the sentence will be carried out formally in the execution ground.”

“Amazing. A trial with a predetermined outcome. Does it have any meaning?”

Since the outcome was already determined, the president sneered to his heart’s content. It was inevitable that a strange sense of relief arose in one corner of his heart, thinking that a rescue operation was being devised even at this very moment.

“It does.”

The TV was broadcasting scenes of EU integrated forces’ barracks and military facilities burning.

“It certainly does.”

* * *

Bush was returning to his lodgings, still not fully sober. Looking at the diligent expression the chief of staff was making next to him, it felt like all the remaining intoxication would disappear.

“There’s a war?”

There were too many forces involved to call it a civil war, and it wasn’t a total war for the fate of a nation because it wasn’t a legitimate government.

“They were almost completely defeated. The fighters were blown up on the runway before they could even take off, and most of the units were thoroughly destroyed in surprise attacks. The navy also sank entirely in the harbor, except for the fleet that was out at sea.”

“How was that possible?”

“First of all, the fact that it was domestic was effective. In addition, they knew each other’s strengths too well, and decisively, the combat power of the West Iraqi army is now comparable to that of most countries.”

The Iraqi army was originally a strong army. But now they were equipped with high-quality Western equipment. No longer armed with illegally copied AK series [Soviet-designed assault rifles], but with M4s produced independently to suit the climate of the Middle East, as well as 800 export-version Leopard 2s [German main battle tanks] produced in Germany, not to mention thousands of outdated 2nd generation tanks from the Iraqi era, and 250 Russian-made Sukhoi series fighters, including Su-30s.

Compared to the current economic level of West Iraq, it was a truly unrealistic figure, but the problem was that they were given away almost for free in the desire to make West Iraq the armory of the Middle East. In order to create a Middle Eastern order centered on West Iraq, paradoxically, West Iraq had to be strong.

“How ironic. Seeing West Iraq, it was easier to talk about raising the Afghan army in Congress. I’ll be reducing support for Afghanistan even more soon.”

Fortunately or unfortunately, there were no deaths or injuries except for Americans or business people who had gone on trips. It was too trivial for the United States to move with this justification, and anyway, they had no intention of moving unless a bomb fell on the mainland.

“What is the EU saying?”

“As you expected, they are calling for retaliation. In addition, troops have already been dispatched from the mainland. Since they have turned a union, not just one country, into an enemy, the Iraqi rebels will not last long.”

“I heard the Iraqi air defense system is excellent.”

It was no exaggeration to say that all European technology went into it, and the Pentagon remembered expressing that Iraq’s dense air defense network was an art in itself.

“Since there is no missile manufacturing plant for the air defense system, once they use up their reserves, that will be the end of it.”

In short, except for the air force, they are essentially people with the latest Western equipment and trained in the Western style. Bush, who had been pondering, found the most appropriate word for this situation.

“A proxy war?”

“Excuse me?”

“Never mind. It’s nothing.”

Bush wondered if the United States could gain anything from this war, and then thought about what would happen if they intervened in the war.

‘What else could it be? It’s the reincarnation of the Iraq War that happened before. Rumsfeld, that guy was good at war, though.’

Donald Rumsfeld. He was a typical old-fashioned man. He was proficient in the old ways, but he was too conservative to go beyond that. In fact, it was a bit of a misnomer to call him conservative. Rather than expressing it as conservative or progressive, it would be more accurate to say that he was thoroughly self-centered.

Originally, people tend to be negative even when they know something is right if they don’t like it, but of course, Bush crushed him because he was trying to run wild arbitrarily before it got out of hand, but anyway, even though he had some flaws, he was a guy who was damn good at fighting.

‘Well, so what. The Federal Armed Forces of the United States are not so weak that they would lose a war they could win just because he’s not there.’

Originally, politics is about turning a blind eye to losses if there are more gains than losses, but conversely, if it is judged that there are more losses, the basic thing is to expel them.

“Can’t we know more details?”

“Knowing that you would ask, this is intelligence sent by our high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft that we prepared.”

There were dozens of photos, but all of them were not much different. Because all of them were just pictures of buildings catching fire. They were just taking pictures of different places.

“So, that’s all?”

In other words, dozens of multinational military facilities were occupying foreign land. At this point, one could understand to some extent the autonomy that the rebels were calling for.

“Yes. That’s all. All of them are military facilities. There are even silos that were being built secretly. Thanks to that, Russia is protesting fiercely.”

“Ah, Putin’s blood pressure must have risen a bit.”

Except for speeches that seemed like they were going to get angry but were loaded with highly calculated emotions, he strangely didn’t get angry, so I was curious whether he would really get angry this time or not.

‘That’s that, and what’s the policy?’

In fact, this was the most important thing in the report, and it was also the purpose of the report. We could postpone it to watch the progress of the incident and make a decision, but the answer was already out.

“Neutral. Tell them that.”