Obama on Monday told Japanese broadcast NHK in an interview that he will not apologise for the USA atomic-bombings on the two cities during World War II in 1945.
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“Despite the significant achievement of the Iran nuclear deal and successes in securing and reducing nuclear weapons-grade material globally, the president’s Prague agenda has been mostly stalled since the 2010 New START agreement with Russian Federation, with no further nuclear weapons reductions”, it said in a separate press release.
Obama, in an interview aired Sunday evening in Japan, confirmed that he would not apologize in Hiroshima for the American atomic bombings.
Thus, the announced presidential visit to Hiroshima has fallen right into a propaganda trap set up by the Chinese communist government that likes to talk about nothing but Japan’s wartime past. Americans have nothing for which to apologize in regard to using atomic bombs to put an end to the slaughter.
A majority of Americans see the bombings as having been necessary to end the war and save USA and Japanese lives, although many historians question that view.
Toshiki Fujimori, a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombing who almost died in the attack as a baby, said it was awkward to see government officials say they are not seeking an apology. But now he adds that more emphasis should be placed on the current relationship between Washington and Tokyo, who are key allies.
Preston said Obama is not the only person who has refused to offer an apology for the catastrophic incident in Japan. Japan’s devoted pacifism since World War II has also created a radical anti-nuclear vigilance that often portrays Japan as the victim of unnecessary atomic bombs.
Sheila Smith, senior fellow for Japan studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of Intimate Rivals: Japanese Domestic Politics and a Rising China (Columbia University Press, 2015), talks about Obama’s visit to Hiroshima this week.
The visit will also have the inadvertent effect of further distancing Japan from some of its neighbors, such as South Korea.
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“It’s important to recognize that in the midst of war, leaders make all kinds of decisions, it’s a job of historians to ask questions and examine them…”
