Gah.
President Barack Obama says he wants to visit the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki sometime during his presidency, but will not have time when he travels to Japan later this week.
In an interview with Japanese broadcaster NHK, Mr. Obama said he would be honored to have the opportunity to visit the two cities that were devastated by U.S. atomic bombs at the end of World War II.
What do you want to bet that you *won’t* hear Obama say something along the lines of “Yeah, this was bad, but an invasion would have been worse. And of course, there wouldn’t have been a Hiroshima if there hadn’t been a Pearl Harbor. Say, how about we pack up this press pool and take a quick flight over to Harbin and Nanking? I’m sure the locals there would love to give some fuller context on the events that led to your two cities getting nuked!”
8 Responses to “Prepare for an expansion of the “US Apology World Tour””
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The funny thing is, as far as I am aware the Japanese don’t really harbor any bitterness at us about that. I think they actually understand that horrible though the bomb was, it was still preferable to the alternative of an invasion. Not to mention all the time we spent helping them build their country back up and providing them with military defense.
> the Japanese don’t really harbor any bitterness at us about that.
Sure. But the whares and the dorphins, however…
Something else that needs to be said out loud is this: “I hope no other country takes actions that force this to be done again in order to promote civilized life.”
My own understanding is that “officially” the Japanese pretend to innocence regarding WWII (I think they call it ‘aggressive defensive actions’) while claiming the bombings were nothing but a malicious act on the U.S.’s part, but the general citizenry doesn’t really give it much of a care any more. Some of the younger political movements in Japan have started bringing up WWII again, mainly in the context of “the U.S. is responsible for all of our problems since WWII”. However, I think these groups are still considered very fringe. Although I’m sure they would get a lot of press in America.
Just saw a story on the AP that BO and the Japanese PM will jointly call for a nuclear-free world. That should work. Maybe they could pass a Security Council resolution; those are really binding from what I hear.
Actually, the real reason Japan’s been having problems for the last 20 years (one of them, anyway; I suspect the ultimate cause lies deeper) is because their banks can’t stop themselves from lending money to companies that aren’t good for it, thus creating “zombie” companies that suck money out of the system and harass their more fiscally sound competitors. Why they do this I have no idea; my current focus is on American economic history and the bit on Japan was something I ran across more or less accidentally in the process. Their demographics don’t help either; with a replacement rate of 1.2, Japan is set to become the world’s oldest nation before too many more years roll by.
“Maybe they could pass a Security Council resolution; those are really binding from what I hear.”
*laugh*
What an awful lot of people forget or never knew in the first place was that the USAAC burned down many Japanese cities just as effectively as they did Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The only difference was that it required hundreds of aircraft dropping conventional incendiaries rather than a handful of Silverplate B-29s and the culmination of probably the greatest engineering effort in history.
Never mind that Downfall would have cost far more lives.
The only thing to apologize for is nothing doing it sooner, I think.
Jim
Err, “not doing it sooner.” Its late.
Jim