Ahead of his visit to Hiroshima, Obama visited Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni to meet with members of the USA military, amid long-simmering resentments in Japan over the US military presence in the country. More than 11,000 USA troops were entombed in the USS Arizona during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Comments, however, show that while some readers welcome the visit wholeheartedly, others have reservations about what they see as the president’s attempt to cement his legacy as an anti-nuclear crusader.
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Speaking to reporters in the coastal Japanese city of Ise Shima, after the first day of an annual summit of leaders of the world’s seven wealthiest nations, the president said the world was paying close attention because “the United States is at the heart of the global order”.
The visit is a bookend of sorts for Obama, who in a 2009 speech in Prague promised to take “concrete steps toward a world without nuclear weapons”.
President Barack Obama on Friday will become the first sitting USA president to visit Hiroshima, the site of the world’s first atomic bombing. Obama has said he will honour all who died in World War Two but will not apologise for the bombing. “So we have no progress on a comprehensive test ban; we have a nuclear arms race in South Asia between India and Pakistan that is very unsafe”.
“The successes are real and important”, says Bunn, “but the world has proven to be more resistant to change in nuclear postures than Obama expected when he came to office”.
When President Obama announced today’s visit to Hiroshima, local media outlets provided a one-size-fits-all script: “Japanese welcome Obama visit to Hiroshima, apology or not”.
But Abe said he had no firm plans to visit Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii, where Japanese planes conducted a surprise morning attack on a US naval installation in 1941.
Many in the U.S. believe the use of the nuclear bomb, though devastating, was right, because it forced Japan to surrender, bringing an end to World War Two.
Marina Sanders, an engineer from the Netherlands who was touring Hiroshima this week, said Obama’s visit was even resonating with Europeans.
The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum opened 10 years after the attack, which killed an estimated 140,000 people. “I think it will be a topic that draws a line under the postwar era”.
Obama arrives in the southern Japanese city late afternoon Friday, with plans to lay a wreath at the saddle-shaped cenotaph in the Peace Memorial Park before delivering short reflections.
Among respondents born in Hiroshima, a 48-year-old man said: “I welcome the decision on the president’s visit during my life”. “I want him to understand our sufferings”. Every person Barack Obama speaks with, listens to and stands beside in Hiroshima.
“An apology is unnecessary”, another man, 41, said.
On Aug. 6, 1945, the B-29 aircraft Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing tens of thousands of people instantly and eventually killing many others due to related sickness and injuries.
Within weeks, Japan surrendered, ending the war in the Pacific Theater. Still, no one nation can realize this vision alone. “People in a position to press the nuclear button should fully recognize the horror of using atomic weapons”.
World War Two flying ace Dean “Diz” Laird, 95, who shot down Japanese fighters and dropped bombs on Tokyo, said he was pleased both that Obama was going to Hiroshima and that he would offer no apology.
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According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the number of nuclear warheads has decreased, but the nine known nuclear powers continue to develop more sophisticated nuclear weapons.
