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Top 10 List of What President Obama Should Say in Hiroshima Speech
Flopping Aces ^ | 05-26-16 | Wordsmith

Posted on 05/26/2016 10:51:25 AM PDT by Starman417

Obama-Bows

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.

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?

One has to take into account the context of the times in which the decision was made.

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 ...


TOPICS: Government; Politics
KEYWORDS: hiroshima; japan; obama
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1 posted on 05/26/2016 10:51:25 AM PDT by Starman417
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To: Starman417

I would be pretty amused if he were to say “Don’t start none, won’t be none” but of course he would never love America enough to do that.


2 posted on 05/26/2016 10:53:12 AM PDT by AzSteven ("War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." Jean Dutourd)
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To: Starman417

Don’t screw with us....our bombs are bigger now.


3 posted on 05/26/2016 10:53:34 AM PDT by Roccus (POLITICIAN...............a four letter word spelled with ten letters.)
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To: Starman417

“Hey Emp, buddy - you got any golf courses in this burg?”


4 posted on 05/26/2016 10:54:56 AM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: Starman417

Attention China: You want some of this?


5 posted on 05/26/2016 10:55:28 AM PDT by rdl6989
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To: Starman417

“You still mad, bro-san?”


6 posted on 05/26/2016 10:55:43 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: Starman417

“Hard to believe that Godzilla caused all of that damage.”


7 posted on 05/26/2016 10:55:57 AM PDT by Hillarys Gate Cult (Liberals make unrealistic demands on reality and reality doesn't oblige them.)
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To: Starman417

He shouldn’t be there......Period...


8 posted on 05/26/2016 10:59:16 AM PDT by Sacajaweau
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To: Starman417

“Aren’t you glad we didn’t firebomb you for another few years to soften you up for invasion?”


9 posted on 05/26/2016 10:59:56 AM PDT by Vaquero ( Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.)
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To: Starman417

He should say “I request political asylum.”


10 posted on 05/26/2016 11:01:04 AM PDT by b4its2late (A Liberal is a person who will give away everything he doesn't own.)
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To: Starman417
Obama should say: "I have dishonoured myself and my country. Please lend me your tanto ..."
11 posted on 05/26/2016 11:01:14 AM PDT by NorthMountain (A plague o' both your houses.)
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To: Starman417

“I hereby resign. Joe Biden is now president.” ;-)


12 posted on 05/26/2016 11:01:39 AM PDT by r_barton (GO TRUMP!!!)
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To: Starman417

Uh, I thought we were told a couple weeks back that Obama was going there to honor the fallen Americans in WW2? That was a lie? I’m shocked!


13 posted on 05/26/2016 11:01:43 AM PDT by Vic S (I am not a number; I am a free man!)
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To: Starman417

How about, “I offer my life in apology. You may incarcerate me here for the rest of my life.”


14 posted on 05/26/2016 11:02:35 AM PDT by TruthInThoughtWordAndDeed (Yahuah Yahusha)
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To: Starman417

“Would you like fries with that?”


15 posted on 05/26/2016 11:06:51 AM PDT by ameribbean expat (When the going gets weird, the weird go professional.)
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To: Starman417

“YOU, started it”


16 posted on 05/26/2016 11:07:41 AM PDT by Puppage (You may disagree with what I have to say, but I shall defend to your death my right to say it)
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To: Starman417

0bama should talk about the Bataan Death March and the heroic Americans who sacrificed themselves for the Filipino people. Don’t forget the Rape of Nanking.

The truth is, the Japanese don’t want anybody to bring up the subject of World War II.


17 posted on 05/26/2016 11:08:06 AM PDT by forgotten man
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To: Starman417

>>Was the U.S. action justified? Were there alternatives? Should the United States apologize?

Yes; No ; No

Any other answers and you’re ignorant of history, a complete blithering fool, or both.


18 posted on 05/26/2016 11:10:46 AM PDT by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: Starman417

“Play stupid games. Win stupid prizes”

Oops... that was President Trump.


19 posted on 05/26/2016 11:12:25 AM PDT by VanDeKoik
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To: Starman417

20 posted on 05/26/2016 11:15:47 AM PDT by JoeProBono (SOME IMAGES MAY BE DISTURBING ’VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED;-{)
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