Obama to make historic visit to Hiroshima
"President Obama will make a historic trip to Hiroshima, Japan, on May 27, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to visit the site of the world’s first atomic bombing.
The White House formally announced the visit Tuesday after weeks of speculation that Obama would stop in the city after attending the Group of 7 economic summit in Ise-Shima. The president is expected to deliver a speech on nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will join Obama on the visit, where the president will "highlight his continued commitment to pursuing the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons," the White House said in a statement.
Obama aides say there will be no presidential apology for the U.S. decision to drop the atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945, which killed an estimated 140,000 people in Hiroshima. Three days later, a second atomic bomb killed up to 80,000 people in Nagasaki.
"He will not revisit the decision to use the atomic bomb at the end of World War II," White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said in a blog post . "Instead, he will offer a forward-looking vision focused on our shared future."
Critics, including many conservative news outlets, have called a visit unnecessary and framed a potential trip by Obama as an apology for an act that helped bring the war started by Japan to a quicker end, saving lives of U.S. service members.
But the White House believed the time was right, in Obama's final year, to make a grand symbolic statement toward the president's disarmament goals that he announced during his first year in office. Though Obama has made only modest progress in that effort, aides said the trip would allow the president to focus international attention on the issue at a time when presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has suggested Japan and South Korea develop their own nuclear weapon arsenals in the face of threats from North Korea."
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Nothing wrong with it. Obama will not "blame" the US for the a-bombing.
There is always time to reflect on a weapon that was deemed so horrible it was only used once (counting Hiroshima and Nagasaki as one instance).
In the summer of 1945, the atomic bomb was considered by some of the people at the highest levels of the US government as just another weapon, albeit an extremely powerful one. From what I have read (one source - Max Hasting's book RETRIBUTION) there was never any doubt that the a-bomb would be used if it worked and was available while the war was ongoing.
What the casual reader of news about the atomic bombing may not realize is that the US Air Force had been systematically destroying Japanese cities with conventional bombing for weeks prior to Hiroshima. That city and Nagasaki were surely destroyed, but at the time it seemed like the next step.
Rhodes is a brilliant spin doctor, he could make Satan resemble Mother Theresa. Look at his statement:
"He will not revisit the decision to use the atomic bomb at the end of World War II,"
AT the end of World War II? How about "with the intent to end World War II"?
He did a superlative job with the Iran nuclear deal as well.
I don't expect Obama to apologize. After all, actions speak louder than words. Anyway, I don't expect Abe to apologize for Nanjing (Nanking) either, so who cares?
I hope they throw shoes and boo him.