RT: How can Obama visit Hiroshima, talk about promoting peace and stopping the spread of nuclear arms, and at the same time be the very person under whose leadership nuclear arms budgets have been boosted in the US? As he and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stood near an iconic bombed-out domed building, Obama acknowledged the devastating toll of war and urged the world to do better. Mr Obama, the first acting President of United States to visit Hiroshima, visited the Hiroshima Memorial along with the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and paid his tribute to the departed souls.
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While some in Japan feel the attack was a war crime because it targeted civilians, many Americans believe it hastened the end of a bloody conflict, and ultimately saved lives.
Trump also dissed Obama’s visit to Japan while campaigning in California Friday.
The president’s call for a nuclear-free world was a long way from the optimistic rallying cry he delivered as young, newly elected president. China hasn’t commented on the timing, but the news of the patrols comes after the announcement of US plans to put anti-ballistic missiles in South Korea, a decision taken in response to North Korea’s latest nuclear test, and as the United States lifts its longstanding arms embargo on Vietnam. He said it would help the suffering of survivors and echoed the anti-nuclear sentiments.
Dr. Robert Jacobs from the Hiroshima Peace Institute at Hiroshima City University argues that the Japanese government “is not seeking an apology” from the US.
Instead, as the New York Times reported, Obama instead focused on how the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are now experiencing peace.
“We remember all the innocents killed across the arc of that bad war”, he said.
Into the night, a line at Peace Memorial Park stretched from an arched stone monument that honors the 140,000 who died from the August 6, 1945, bombing to a museum that tells the stories of some of those dead, about 200 meters (yards) away.
He did not, however, apologize for the decision to drop the bomb. “To take stock of who we are and what we might become”, Obama said during his visit to the city’s Peace Memorial Park.
Obama said.A second atomic bomb, dropped on Nagasaki three days later Hiroshima, killed 70,000 more.
MARGARET WARNER: In an emotional moment afterward, Mr. Obama greeted survivors of the Hiroshima bombing.
Later, Tsuboi told reporters he was struck by how Obama held his hand and listened carefully.
Sherman Gillums Jr., a Marine veteran and executive director of Paralyzed Veterans of America, described Obama’s visits to Vietnam and Hiroshima as “bittersweet for many, particularly ahead of Memorial Day”. “You can never tell how people’s minds work”, she said.
Obama touched down at Andrews Air Force Base Friday evening before boarding helicopter Marine One to return to the White House.
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Jimmy Carter visited the atomic bomb memorial in Hiroshima in 1984, after he had left office. “I don’t think so”, she said, “because there are so many (bombs) in the world”.
