Posted on 05/26/2016 10:51:25 AM PDT by Starman417
6 years ago, on the 65th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima, I wrote:
No sitting Japanese prime minister has ever been to Pearl Harbor; and no sitting American president has ever been to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Will President Obama be the first?
6 years later, we have our answer.
Tom Collina at Foreign Policy:
President Barack Obama will soon become the first sitting U.S. president to go to Hiroshima, the White House announced on Tuesday. Obama will go on May 27, just after the G-7 summit, to visit the historic city where the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945. Three days later, the United States dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki. All told, more than 200,000 people perished, mostly civilians.One has to take into account the context of the times in which the decision was made.Secretary of State John Kerry visited Hiroshima on April 11, the first of his rank to do so, in part to test the waters for Obama. “Everyone in the world should see and feel the power of this memorial,” Kerry wrote in a guest book after touring the Hiroshima Peace Memorial.
The president’s visit is almost as controversial as the bombing itself. Ten presidents before Obama have avoided a trip that raises uncomfortable questions. Was the U.S. action justified? Were there alternatives? Should the United States apologize?
Yes, the president should go. Not to look back, but to look forward to ensure that nuclear weapons are never used again. “This isn’t about questioning America’s responsibility for using nuclear weapons,” Tomihisa Taue, the mayor of Nagasaki, recently said. “It’s important to think about how to rid nuclear weapons from the world.”As Obama’s tenure comes to a close, this may be one of his last opportunities to deliver a major policy speech on nuclear weapons — one of his signature issues.
Reagan also had a desire to rid the world of nuclear weapons; but his approach was much different.
Has President Obama made nuclear war more likely or less likely, thanks to his tenure as PotUS? In light of his Iran Deal?
As Ben Rhodes, the White House’s deputy national security advisor, explained on Medium, the president’s trip “will reaffirm America’s longstanding commitment — and the President’s personal commitment — to pursue the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”
As Lester Tenney wrote in the WSJ:
What Hiroshima represents is more than the effects of a nuclear weapon. It is the culmination of a war started by Imperial Japan and conducted with gross inhumanity, a war in which more civilians died than combatants.It would be wrong for the president to pivot away from this history and use his visit solely to discuss aspirations for a world without nuclear weapons. Hiroshima highlights mankind’s tragic ability to wreak terrible destruction, and this destruction was not caused exclusively by atomic bombs. Sand-filled bamboo sticks, bayonets, plague-inflected fleas, starvation and rape—methods of warfare used by Japan—are also destructive.
~~~
Mr. Obama wants to use his visit to Hiroshima to highlight the perils of nuclear war. But this is not the only lesson. Our service as veterans of the Pacific War needs to be remembered and not abandoned to some tumid oratory. The president’s visit to Hiroshima will be hollow, a gesture without motion, if the Pacific War’s full history is not maintained. Hiroshima does not and cannot exist outside the context of the Asia-Pacific War and all its dead.
So what should the PotUS say, since he has gone there to speak? WaPo's Adam Taylor seems to think America should apologize for a great many sins and offers up a short list.
Do the Japanese even think that an apology is even owed it? Apparently 80% of Hiroshima survivors are not.
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net ...
Psst Abe San. It was the Joooos.
“My fellow Americans - oh, wait, that’s right, you aren’t Americans. What the hell, neither am I...”
We won you lost
Remember Nanking? You are welcome we only nuked 2 of your cities.
FWIW, Japan only admits refugees and asylum seekers who would be an asset to the nation. I don't know how a racist, divisive street thug could possibly qualify in a nation which stresses harmony.
“LOOK!.....GODZILLA!!!”
“We still have Enola Gay. You be careful so we don’t cap your ass again”
“I’m a muslim faggot.”
If the US had been forced to invade Japan...10 to 15 million Japanese would have died.
On your birthdays, each and every one of you should thank Truman and his decision to drop the atomic bombs
Because if he didn't...most of you won't be here because you're grandparents and great grandparents would have died during those battles.
I still prefer him to say “I hereby resign the office of President of the United States effective immediately.”
1. Thanks for the glowing reception.
2. I don’t know about y’all but I’m having a blast.
3. Japan leads the world in mutation rates, and we’d like to think we had something to do with that.
4. We won.
5. I love what you’ve done with the place.
6. We freed a lot of people from routine lives.
7. Did you hear the one about the pilot named Sum Ting Wong?
8.
There were alternatives, tho. Firebomb, blockade and starve Japan into submission, allow the Red Army and Chinese to annihilate the Japanese army on the Asian mainland.
The atomic bombings just happened to be the least worst alternative.
The CO of the submarine based plane squadron that was en route to suicide bomb the US fleet anchorage at Ulithi when the war ended was once asked what he fought of the last of his planes (Seiran) being displayed next to the Enola Gay at the Smithsonian. He said that the Enola Gay didn’t just save his life, it saved his nation.
They were among the fortunate ones who survived the three year ordeal, and were freed when MacArthur finally retook the country. There have been bills in Congress and other attempts at reparations, but political considerations always outweighed mere questions of right vs. wrong and simple fairness, and not one penny has ever been received by the internees or their survivors.
I'm sure Barry will bring this up as his head scrapes the floor in an apologetic bow.
UNIT 731
Yep. Obama is a very, very, VERY sorry president. ;-)
If the bombs had not been dropped and the war had dragged on a few more months (or longer) then probably part of Japan would have become a Soviet occupation zone. Maybe Japan would now be divided like Korea still is or like Germany was for more than 40 years.
Fair enough.
Yeah, our Lefties are so ignorant of history, and so overcome with joy to use the A-bombings to push their narrative of “the USA is EVIL,” that they can’t see and would never admit that the A-bombs saved Japanese lives.
“I resign”....
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