Posted on 05/19/2016 7:59:27 AM PDT by Rennes Templar
Tokyo (AFP) - Victims of the atomic bombings of Japan want an apology from US President Barack Obama when he visits Hiroshima next week, the head of a survivors' group said Thursday.
Obama will become the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima, where the first atomic bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945, killing about 140,000 people in total.
Tens of thousands were killed by the fireball that the powerful Hiroshima blast generated, with many more succumbing to injuries or illnesses caused by radiation in the weeks, months and years afterwards.
Vast swathes of the city, including many of its military and industrial installations, were flattened.
The southern city of Nagasaki was hit by a second bomb days later, killing 74,000 people, in one of the final acts of World War II.
"I urge him to apologise to those who died, bereaved families and parents who lost their children," Terumi Tanaka, secretary general of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations and a survivor of the Nagasaki explosion, told reporters.
The comments came as Obama's much anticipated journey to Hiroshima reignited an emotional debate over whether the bombings were justified and whether the US president should apologise.
Obama, who will be in Japan for a Group of Seven summit, will visit Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park on May 27 and be accompanied by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
US officials have ruled out an apology for the bombings and said Obama will not revisit the decision by then-US President Harry Truman to carry them out.
"Many atomic bomb victims think it's not all right if (Obama) doesn't apologise," said Toshiki Fujimori, the group's assistant secretary general and also a survivor of the Hiroshima bomb.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
Remember victims of the Bataan Death March.
carefully worded waffle statement being crafted as we wait.
I “apologize” that we didn’t have more than two bombs for them. By the way...have they apologized for starting the war and murdering many innocents???
While it wouldn’t surprise me if the loathsome Obama made a direct apology, I think it is more likely that he will make remarks that fall just short of that, but that can be interpreted as apology.
Japan has STILL never apologized for Unit 731 that did the chemical and biological experiments.
They did things that would have made Dr. Mengele wretch. By degree, it was probably the most foul and evil thing to happen in WWII.
There is a movie that was made in the late 80s in China. It is probably the most gut wrenching film you could ever see and you’ll only watch it once. It would be the worst horror movie ever, but it was simply a literal depiction of everything the Japs were proven to have done.
It was filmed at the actual location. It could only have been filmed in China, and before the modern Chinese era. They used actual recently dead bodies for scenes that defy description.
“Men behind the sun”
Free on youtube if you can watch it.
You want an apology, talk to Tojo.
I think these Japanese are victims of revisionist history, ie, clueless.
Thanks, will check it out.
We’re sorry you attacked us and forced us to retaliate. Is that good enough?
The apology should come from their own government and nobody else.
I spent some time in China in the late 90s and I met a Japanese professor there, on a train, an older gentleman who claimed to have roots in the Hiroshima area, and who said that he knows many of his countrymen who were thankful that the US ended the war without bringing the Russians in and that were understanding on the question of the use of the atomic bombs.
Maybe he was BSing me for some reason, I don’t know. But he seemed sincere.
Maybe they want Obama to apologize for everything bad he has done. It would be a long speech.
We only had two working bombs, there were none available for a so-called demonstration.
I’ve often heard liberals say that we should have done a demonstration of the bomb for the Japanese, and show them the power of the bomb, to encourage them to surrender.
but would that have worked? They didn’t surrender after Hiroshima. They surrendered after Nagasaki, and the shock and awe and fears that many more were coming their way.
“I urge him to apologise to those who died, bereaved families and parents who lost their children,”
If we hadn’t used those two bombs, and instead had ended the war via blockade, bombardment and invasion, those same people would have died of starvation, disease and the invasion.
I would not be surprised , not withstanding White House denial, if the negro community organizer from Chicago apologizes for the bomb on Hiroshima. His policy for the last few months will be lots of “in yo face mo fo” and transformation words and deeds.
There was a faction in the Japanese army that didn’t even want to surrender after Nagasaki, and attempted a coup to prevent the Emperor from broadcasting his surrender announcement.
Does Japan apologize over and over to various nations for its war crimes? I don’t think the Japanese government has ever fully apologized even once.
Have a sister who lived in Japan.
Riding the subway on Dec 7th in the late 90s, the news headline on the news ticker read “This day in history, Japan enters WWII”.
That’s a sweet way of saying it, huh?
They didn’t surrender after Hiroshima. They surrendered after Nagasaki, and the shock and awe and fears that many more were coming their way.
Yea, the Japs were so nice to our POW’s and they conducted themselves so honorably at Pearl Harbor.
I’d like to apologize for not nuking Tokyo and Yokohama like we should have done bringing it home to the leaders instead of some second class cities.
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