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Obama To Become First US President To Visit Hiroshima Since 1945 Nuclear Attack (independent.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes: The White House announced U.S. President Barack Obama will visit Hiroshima, becoming the first sitting American President to do so since the city was destroyed in 1945 by a U.S. nuclear bomb. President Obama and Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit the city on May 27th "to highlight his continued commitment to pursuing the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement. Obama said he hoped to visit both Hiroshima and Nagasaki when he first visited Japan in November 2009. "The memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are etched in the minds of the world, and I would be honored to have the opportunity to visit those cities at some point during my presidency," President Obama said at the time. At least 140,000 people died from the nuclear attack on Hiroshima on August 9, 1945. Three days later, the U.S. dropped a second atomic weapon on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered to Allied forces within a week after that second attack.
Take a look at what the Japanese did in China. They made the Nazis look tame. I figure that they think they got off light and they did. You don't want to think about what would have happened if the Chinese had invaded Japan at the end of that war. The bombing of Pearl Harbor that everyone demonizes the Japanese for is not really the bad thing they did. On the scale of their infamous acts that was about .01 The way they treated POWs was horrendous but even worse was the way they treated defeated civilian populations. We can debate the dropping of the two bombs on Japan. Maybe they saved even more lives than they took, both Japanese and American. There is however no debate about the uncivilized behavior of the Japanese military.
Do you all think it's accidental that as soon as we know who the candidates for president are going to be that Obama's approval ratings go up? It's as if people are saying, "Holy shit. Obama wasn't really so bad after all."
He's currently got a higher approval rating than Ronald Reagan at the same point in their terms.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Bush's time in office has no intrinsic bearing on judgments of Obama's time in office.
"Obama has been the worst President ever."
"What about Bush?" - fair question
"Obama has been a terrible President."
"What about Bush?" - poor attempt at deflection
At any rate, even after the first bomb, the Japanese government dithered on whether to surrender unconditionally.
There are official communications within the government that indicated the military leaders insisted Hiroshima wasn't a nuclear bomb. It was a large-scale conventional bombing (like Dresden) with a dirty bomb at the end, to make it look nuclear. The radiation levels were lower than expected, and the destruction less (see the modern day conspiracy theorists that insist there are no atom bombs), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... was still standing and was near ground-zero. The destruciton wasn't dissimilar to a conventional bombing, with scattered buildings left standing.
Japan surrendered both before and after Hiroshima. Though every surrender before Nagasaki included the conditions that the Japanese government be left as-was (including domination by the military in civilian affairs), and nobody be tried for war crimes. Both of those were unacceptable conditions at the time.
Learn to love Alaska
I'm always a bit baffled by how the world keeps looking at Germany and Japan's WWII histories. Germany's is 'What we did was horrible, never forget when we did' and Japan's is always 'What was done to us was horrible, never forget what happened to us.'
Anytime I see any sort of WWII memorial sort of thing here and there, it's almost always about either the Holocaust or the Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombings. Well, those are two very different things. The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, the Rape of Nanjing, Unit 731, the so-called 'comfort women' (or to call that what it actually was, sexual slavery)...I mean, without even considering Pearl Harbor, let's not pretend that there wasn't one hell of a lead up to the bombings.
It just seems wrong that we spend so much more time talking about the thing that ended the war than the actions, and victims, that made those means necessary.
What amazes me is the fact that there are people who try to hold the current generation of Japanese... of any nationality actually... to blame for the misdeeds of old dead people from whom they happen to be descended. Real life is not Star Trek, and we are not Klingons. The "Sins of the Father" do not dishonor the next seven generations of real human beings.
Every decision maker involved in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is long dead. And if any members of the flight crew are still breathing, they're not long for this world. The same is true of Pearl Harbor, Dresden, the Holocaust, Stalingrad, Bataan, etc. To continue to bear a grudge, especially when you're not even the actual person who was wronged, and double especially against people who weren't involved and likely not even born at the time; is just batshit irrational.
Imagine all the people...
My father was in the 10th Mountain Division in Northern Italy fighting the Nazi's 1945 earning a Silver Star and Purple Heart. His company, being battled tested, was told next stop is the south Pacific... Then the Bomb was dropped and the course of history changed. Nevertheless I am not angry about Obama visiting Hiroshima. It is about time politicians paid attention to the past and understand the terrible power we wield and the horrendous consequence of war. Now maybe a Japanese leader will visit Nanking or a Turkish leader will visit an Armenian site. Bout time I say.
Except Obama is actually a pretty good president.
Exhibit A: Visiting a nation to reflect on the deaths of the 150,000 people we killed there.
And Bush was a pretty fucking horrible one.
Exhibit A: Invading Iraq under false pretenses.
The lifetimes of those involved.
Time to get over it.
It's time to stop cursing Alexander the Great. But some cultures pass down this hatred as part of their oral tradition to keep the hate alive.
Destroying the governments of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Ukraine, what government working in Iraq, Afghanistan, screwing over our relationships with Russia, China, Saudi Arabia letting Turkey fail to religious fascism, getting walked over by Iran and Cuba. The man should stay home locked away till the end of year if he wants to stop the pain.
Sorry Kevin, but Historians judge it quite differently already.
He solved the GOP's Great Recession, Cut CO2 emission from America by HUGE amounts (though to be fair, W's push on fracking/drilling producing low costs nat gas was equally, if not more, to credit for bringing it down), open trade with cuba again, provided a solution for medicine costs (still remains to be seen if any good, but is better than previous), cut the deficit in half, and only 1 supreme court loss (with all the rest being total wins even thought the GOP has pushed more fights than has EVER BEEN DONE). The list goes on and on. There is a REAL reason why Historians judge him quite a bit higher than you do
For example, you claim that SCOTUS did a number of unanimous rulings against O. Other than his appointing a person during what should have been a congressional recession (but GOP was pulling a stupid action), what other unanimous SCOTUS rulings were there?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
No tears shed even for the innocent killed?
Yes, it's a shame that the Japanese government was so willing to see so many of their own innocent people die. That is entirely, 100%, on them. Luckily the US was able to use the strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to greatly reduce the number of people that the Japanese government would otherwise have sacrificed in horrible, bloody, flaming "conventional" fighting before it was over. But yes, go ahead and shed tears for those victims of the government that the Japanese people allowed to run them into the ruin they experienced. It's a shame. Good thing the US was able to end it abruptly and save so many lives.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.