Obama To Visit Hiroshima

[Big Guy]

President Barack Obama will become the first sitting American president to visit the site of the U.S. atomic bomb attack in Hiroshima, Japan, the White House said Tuesday, a charged final-year stop meant to advance his goal of nuclear disarmament.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/10/politics/obama-hiroshima-visit-japan/index.html

There is speculation that he may apologize for the USA incineration of a quarter of a million Japanese civilians. Others suspect that the USA will never apologize for this mother-of-all "collateral damage"!

Perhaps he will bring them the good news that Donald Trump has suggested that countries like Japan and South Korea should have access to nuclear weapons. That will give them the chance to return the favor and send the USA a "LITTLE BOY" in the future.

Edited May 11, 2016 by Big Guy

[bush_cheney2004]

Japan should maintain good relations with Canada if that's the case....a reliable supplier for the uranium fuel cycle has been very important to the United States' and United Kingdom's nuclear weapons programs. Perhaps President Obama can give Canada a strong recommendation / referral.

[BC_chick]

Iran, Cuba, now Japan. You think Vietnam will make it on the list before year's end?

[PIK]

Good for Obama. I wish the world would spend more time and effort to get rid of these weapons.

[DogOnPorch]

Good for Obama. I wish the world would spend more time and effort to get rid of these weapons.

Get rid of? Here's some toothpaste....and an empty toothpaste tube. Start stuffin'

They're not going away unless they are used en masse.

[Bonam]

Good for Obama. I wish the world would spend more time and effort to get rid of these weapons.

A world without nuclear weapons is a world where major powers fight each other directly and tens of millions of people die as a result. No thank you.

The horrors of using nuclear weapons, exemplified at Hiroshima, are important to remember, because it is precisely this memory of what nuclear weapons do that keeps the world at peace.

Edited May 11, 2016 by Bonam

[bush_cheney2004]

The irony of this visit is that President Obama is leading the biggest and most expensive modernization of the USA's nuclear weapons systems since they were first developed....about $1 TRILLION over the next 30 years. Japan will have to decide if basing American nuclear weapons on its soil is prudent given rising threat assessments for North Korea.

https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/USNuclearModernization

[PIK]

All it takes in one idiot to use them, I would prefer wars over the death of the planet.

[August1991]

Let's see what Obama says there. But IMHO, the US has no reason to apologize to any foreigner (and I say that as a grateful Canadian who lives beside you Americans).

Frankly, Obama should have done this only if the Japanese PM agreed to fly to Nanking immediately - and do the same.

At the very least, the US has no reason to apologize until Japan and Germany apologize. And Germany has done this.

VIDEO LINK

A Japanese leader (not a Brandt, the Emperor himself) should do the same, genuflect in Nanking, publicly for the world to see.

====

Until then, IMHO, a sitting US President has no business in Nagasaki or Hiroshima.

Edited May 13, 2016 by Michael Hardner
ADDED VIDEO LINK

[TimG]

A Japanese leader (not a Brandt, the Emperor himself) should do the same, genuflect in Nanking, publicly for the world to see.

The US has nothing to apologize to Japan and Obama is wrong to do this silly gesture. More importantly, The current Japanese government has nothing to apologize for either. The obsession with laying the blame for past wrongs on current governments is pathetic. It is even more pathetic in the Asia case where China has systematically exaggerated the harms caused by the Japanese Army for political purposes which means they expect Japan to apologize for fictions they created.

Edit: to clarify the Japanese Army did cause great harm in China but it is wrong to take the Chinese narrative at face value because the Chinese government is filled with liars who are happy to manipulate history for political purposes. It is also true that the Japanese try to minimize what happened for political purposes so their narrative should not be taken at face value either. The gap between the 2 narratives makes reconciliation impossible until there is a willingness on both sides to close the gap. That is not going to happen any time soon.

Edited May 13, 2016 by TimG

[August1991]

... but it is wrong to take the Chinese narrative at face value because the Chinese government is filled with liars...

Wrong.

I'm no Chinese apologist. But IMHO, no American president should genuflect in Riyadh or Hiroshima or Berlin. Ever.

Willy Brandt atoned in 1970. A Japanese "Emperor" should do the same, publicly - ever before a US Head of State.

Edited May 13, 2016 by August1991