Japanese Leader to 'Express Remorse' (but not apologize) for World War II

Daily Standard ^ | January 5, 2015 | Daniel Halper

[TheRightGuy]

nuke’em again, nuke’em again, harder, harder

[Zakeet]

I understand completely what you are asking for and you are certainly justified. The only problem: then we would have to apologize for atom bombs being dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Why?

We don't need to apologize for the Japanese aggression or their atrocities or our economic boycott for their actions that lead to their sneak attack at Pearl Harbor. They alone started the terrible war that we were forced to end.

Neither do we need to apologize for the two bombs in my opinion. Recall that the blasts caused between 120,000 and 200,000 casualties in total. The only other alternative was to invade Japan at an estimated cost of at least 1,000,000 Allied casualties and 4,000,000 to 8,000,000 Japanese casualties -- assuming the Japanese didn't fight to the death like they did throughout the Pacific campaign. The atomic bombs actually saved millions of lives.

I fail to see where we did anything wrong in either case.

[GeronL]

No, we would not have to apologize for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[dhs12345]

The problem is that then we get into a moral equivalency issue. There are probably many Japanese who feel the same way about our dropping the bombs.

We did it out of necessity and we actually save lives (both Japanese and ally).

They did it out of sheer brutality and viciousness.

There is a very clear distinction but mark my words, someone will demand tit for tat.

[dhs12345]

And nor should we. But, no doubt it will come up.

[virgil]

I don’t expect Abe to apologize for WWII. Most of those people are dead. We should never apologize for dropping the bomb either. It’s a terrible weapon, yes. I hope we never have to use it again, but we did what we had to do at the time.

[dhs12345]

Absolutely agree.