Posted on 04/12/2016 3:49:05 PM PDT by Kaslin
When John Kerry toured the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and Museum this week before meeting foreign ministers at the G-7 Summit, Reuters reports that he had witnessed “haunting displays [of] photographs of badly burned victims, the tattered and stained clothes they wore and statues depicting them with flesh melting from their limbs.”
“It is a stunning display. It is a gut-wrenching display,” explained Kerry. “It is a reminder of the depth of the obligation every one of us in public life carries … to create and pursue a world free from nuclear weapons.”
Iran exempted, of course.
But, really, is this the lesson of Hiroshima? That those in public life have an obligation to do away with nuclear weapons? A lot of people might argue that existence of those weapons have saved lives from broader world conflicts and conventional warfare. That includes ending the Second World War sooner.
Yesterday, The Washington Post dutifully reported that, “In Hiroshima, Kerry won’t apologize for atomic bombs dropped on Japan.” Technically, he didn’t. What we witnessed was one of the administration’s inverted non-apology apologies.
Barack Obama will also travel to Japan next month for the G-7. There’s a lot of speculation he will visit Hiroshima and offer some sort of apology. (If we’re to believe WikiLeaks, U.S. officials have been toying with the idea of having Obama say sorry for Hiroshima for a while now. And it comports well with his history.)
It would not be a great leap for Obama. Having a high-ranking American official visit the museum already lends credence to the Japanese notion that the U.S. bombing was gratuitous. On top of this, Kerry blames “nuclear weapons” — rather than Japan’s fanaticism and nihilism — for Hiroshima. So we’re on our way.
If the Obama administration is intent on historical score-keeping there’s plenty to talk about. Japan aligned itself with one of the great murderers of the 20th century (though it needed no help initiating genocide) and launched numerous invasions and a war that cost the U.S. hundreds of thousands of lives and billions in treasure, both fighting Japan and helping it create a stable, liberal state after the war.
It’s not like the Japanese have ever truly apologized for the butchery, mass rape, destruction, and aggression that made Hiroshima a reality. Has any Japanese foreign or prime minister strolled through the gut-wrenching exhibit about the Nanking massacre? The first time any Japanese official apologized for the Bataan Death March was 2009 — and then only an ambassador.
Of course, revisiting Japan’s 70-year-old offenses at a G-7 Summit would be ridiculous and counterproductive. As is the compunction of Obama’s officials to “acknowledge” or apologize for the alleged sins and moral deficiencies of the U.S. every time they get on an international flight — a grating habit since 2009.
After all, Kerry could have said that Hiroshima was “a reminder of the depth of the obligation every one of us in public life carries to stop extremist regimes like Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.” Or he might have said Hiroshima was “a reminder of the depth of the obligation every one of us in public life carries to ensure that we are well prepared for the next force that threatens peace.”
Instead our motto the past eight years has been, “Strength Through Moral Equivalence.”
In Strasbourg, France, President Obama, who would later fail to show up in Paris with the rest of the free world’s leaders to make a statement about Islamism, said, “there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive” towards Europe. This same president pays respect to the contemptible Saudi Arabian monarch while being dismissive — even derisive — of the only liberal nation in the Middle East, talks to the Muslim world about American colonialism as if it were a real thing.
American officials can acknowledge the catastrophe of war and the destructive capability of nuclear weapons — even in the context of World War II warfare, the instantaneous carnage of the atom bomb was especially horrifying — without visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial or apologizing. Surely those in the fire-bombings of Dresden (or even Tokyo, for that matter) saw thousands of badly burned victims, in tattered clothes with skin melting from their limbs. It’s going to be a long apology tour if we take this route.
Now, it’s a shame evil regimes start world wars that other nations are forced to win. But without the use of atomic weapons, World War II would likely have been prolonged. I realize historians debate how many Americans would have been saved, but at the very least, Truman’s intention was not to murder civilians indiscriminately, but to end the war in the Pacific.
Most reasonable people, even those who believe a war is wrong, mishandled, or fought poorly, can probably concede that since the start of the 20th century, the U.S. does not enter into conflict with an intent to steal oil or exact revenge on civilians or to drop atom bombs for kicks. We’re far more inclined to fight wars to try to create democracies or spread freedom — however misguided and botched those efforts are sometimes. And post-war Japan is proof that Americans, unlike most other places around the world, don’t really hold grudges. So, though we are imperfect, we are not equally culpable. Not even close.
Had there not been a Pearl Harbor there would have never been a Hiroshima.
Thank God that our country was not ruled by such pussies as Kerry and Obama in 1941 or we’d all be speaking German or Japanese.
There’s only one question left - OK maybe two.
Why hasn’t Obama been impeached yet?
And when will Obama be impeached?
Remove this Enemy in Chief!!! Now!!!
This Country is in such a mess. And it isn’t all obuma’s fault, a lot is but there is a lot of blame to go around...GHWB, Clinton, Clinton, GWB, GWB, Obuma and the Senate and the House...
And we have how much longer of this embarrassing jackass running around the world kissing butt????
My dad was an officer in the First Calvary Division and was staged just off the coast of Japan as part of the invasion force. Estimates at the time called for 1 million American casualties in a full scale invasion of Japan. He never would have survived with his battalion of armor and thanks to Harry Truman, lived to the respectable age of 86.
“It is a reminder of the depth of the obligation every one of us in public life carries … to create and pursue a world free from nuclear weapons.”
Kerry dishonor’s our country and the thousands, like my dad, who fought in the Pacific and were all, to the man, thankfully rejoicing that they would NOT have to invade Japan with boots on the ground. Because every knew that would have been a bloodbath 10 times worse than Hiroshima.
We needed an all out, no holds barred, strategy to beat the Axis. That includes the nukes.
Besides I'd rather he would be sentenced to Leavenworth prison for 100 years plus
If you start to feel sorry for the Japanese, just read their history.
That will change your mind.
We are sorry their bushido crazed military government decided attacking and brutalizing all their (inferior) Asian neighbors, and driving white people (Americans, Australians, British, Dutch, and French) out of the Pacific, was a good idea. And we’re really sorry it took two atomic detonations and the fire bombing of every town and city in their tiny country to convince them to surrender. Other than that, the people who deserve a real apology are the millions of raped, beaten, and dead they left in their wake.
“badly burned victims, the tattered and stained clothes they wore and statues depicting them with flesh melting from their limbs.”
This is a shame in its own right, but again, we MUST ALWAYS ASK:
“Is it us, or them?”
Sometimes, you HAVE TO make the choice between 2 parties. And that choice basically is, “who is better?”
We’d probably be a split nation ala The Man In The High Castle.
Yup.
And how many Japanese civilians might have died? Many times those who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Constant bombing, months long blockades of the islands, mass starvation. And the Japanese were dug in and prepared to fight to the death.
Obama is a short sighted fool.
“Had there not been a Pearl Harbor there would have never been a Hiroshima.”
We would still have been drawn in.
We broke the Japanese code. We new that the Japanese were not planning to surrender.
They also estimated about 5 million Japanese casualties overthe years it would have taken, conventionally.
Think of those millions left alive because of those two bombs.
Karma is a biatch - those torpedo’s used at Pearl Harbor? They were built in Nagasaki.
Its just about time to wipe the slate clean and start again.
If we nuke Mecca, the Japs will STFU for another 50 or 60 years.
i hate obama....all of our men and women that died and that were wounded .my heart feels for their families
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