Barack Obama on Friday became the first incumbent USA president to visit Hiroshima since America dropped an atomic bomb on the city 71 years ago, stirring mixed feelings among the United States, Japan and the victim countries during WWII.
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Another bomb survivor, Michiko Kimoto, 87, also had doubts that Obama’s visit would ever lead to a world without nuclear weapons.
Thus, in an adroit and elegant manner, the imperative of forgiving is underlined. and the Japanese interlocutor is being acknowledged for forgiving, and empathizing with the American adversary of August 1945.
Mr Obama said he looked forward to the day when there was an end to the stockpiling of nuclear weapons.
“I think he has the strong leadership abilities to make it happen”, he said.
He also signed a guest book at the memorial park, writing: ‘We have known the agony of war.
“We are under the USA nuclear umbrella, so Abe can’t do so much”, Obama saidabout USA protection of Japan.
“White House officials have stressed that the visit wasn’t an apology, and that it was aimed at highlighting his commitment to pursuing the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons” and to honor the memory of all innocents who were lost during the war.
Just as Obama had delicate sensitivities to manage in Hiroshima, so too did Abe.
President Barack Obama says world leaders he has spoken with are “rattled” by the presence of Donald Trump as a candidate in the 2016 presidential race – and offered his own harsh criticism of the bombastic billionaire.
Obama avoided any direct expression of remorse or apology for the bombings, a decision that some critics had anxious would allow Japan to stick to the narrative that paints it as a victim.
Prominent nuclear weapons activists are calling President Obama a hypocrite on nuclear proliferation, using his visit Friday to Hiroshima to draw the attention to his modernization of the American nuclear arsenal.
“The world needs more than words”, Derek Johnson, executive director of Global Zero, an anti-nuclear group, said in a statement. To prevent conflict through diplomacy and strive to end conflicts after they’ve begun. That the administration – and the president himself – had to rebuff questions as to whether he would apologize for the bombing that ended World War II reflects poorly on his actions.
China says Japanese troops in 1937 killed 300,000 people in its then-capital of Nanjing. This will not only make the USA itself safe but make the entire world cradle of peace. Basically, it was the civilian population, that time Korean workers were forced to work by Japan in local military enterprises.
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Information for this article was contributed by Nancy Benac and Foster Klug of The Associated Press; by Gardiner Harris, Motoko Rich, Jonathan Soble and Jane Perlez of The New York Times; and by David Nakamura, Carol Morello and Steven Mufson of The Washington Post.
