Secretary of State John Kerry toured the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and Museum in Japan this week, a month before he and President Obama will meet foreign ministers at the G-7 Summit. Reuters reported that he witnessed “haunting displays [of] photographs of badly burned victims, the tattered and stained clothes they wore and statues depicting them with flesh melting from their limbs.”
“It is a stunning display. It is a gut-wrenching display,” explained Kerry. “It is a reminder of the depth of the obligation every one of us in public life carries … to create and pursue a world free from nuclear weapons.” Iran would exempt itself, of course. But is this really the lesson of Hiroshima? That those in public life have an obligation to do away with nuclear weapons? A lot of people might argue that the existence of those weapons has saved lives from broader world conflicts and conventional warfare. That includes ending World War II sooner.
Last week, The Washington Post dutifully reported, “In Hiroshima, Kerry won’t apologize for atomic bombs dropped on Japan.” Technically, he didn’t. What we witnessed was one of the administration’s inverted non-apology apologies.
There’s a lot of speculation Obama will visit Hiroshima during the summit and offer some sort of apology. (If we’re to believe WikiLeaks, U.S. officials have been wrestling with the idea of having Obama apologize for the Hiroshima attacks for a while now.) Doing so would comport well with his history, but it would not be a great leap for Obama. Having a high-ranking American official visit the museum already lends credence to the Japanese notion that the U.S. bombing was gratuitous. On top of that, Kerry blames nuclear weapons — rather than Japan’s fanaticism and nihilism — for Hiroshima.
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More ridiculousness from Obama. Does this guy ever stop or what? I'll be so glad to see him out of the WH. He's a stain on America's history. It's like the 13th floor in buildings. When we count presidents perhaps we'll start skipping him. 43, 45. Etc.
ReplyDeleteAre they all taking sail boats to the summit? Surely the president is not flying over in a huge jet plane with global warming!! That could easily hurt several polar bears.
ReplyDeleteKerry is an idiot. We bombed Japan in 1945 and haven't had a problem with them since. Maybe the Middle East needs a dose of it.
ReplyDeleteGod will weed us out.
ReplyDeleteThis was necessary to win the war. With out the a bomb who knows how long the war would have raged on and how many more would have died. Why does America keep saying sorry to everyone else and no one else has said sorry to us. We are soft and need to be great again.
ReplyDeleteJohn Kerry is a traitor! He testified against his fellow soldiers about stuff in Viet Nam and got them sent to prison!
ReplyDelete11:07
ReplyDeleteYou might want to actually learn the truth about Japan and WWII.
The Japanese tried desperately to surrender but were not allowed to do so. The US Government wanted to drop those weapons regardless of the lack of need for it.
It was a war crime. The US bombed civillians intentionally.
Japan bombed military and civilians intentionally at Pearl Harbor. They deserved the same.
ReplyDelete1107 a victim of revisionist history.
ReplyDelete11:07 is delusional. being told a lie doesn't mean you have to believe it.
ReplyDeleteThis was the most necessary move to end the war, and it worked. Please note that the articles of surrender were signed AFTER the bomb, and so was Japan's verbiage stating the same.
But, you can revise this if you want...