Jan Thompson, head of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Memorial Society, said her group was asked by the White House on Saturday to select a former POW to travel with Obama to Hiroshima, the city hit by the first of two atomic bombs dropped by the us on Japan near the end of World War II.
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“Part of the subtext is telling this and future Japanese leaders that ‘If I can go to Hiroshima and take flak for it at home, you can certainly do a little more to own up to what Japan did”, said one USA official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed by the U.S. during World War 2 in August 1945 along with Nagasaki, an act that killed over 1,20,000 people. Yet, Japan’s regional adversaries-most prominently the anti-democratic governments of communist China and North Korea-refuse to recognize Japan’s spectacular postwar transformation to a new nation and relentlessly carry on a false narrative, i.e., today’s Japan is a continuation, or a nascent revival, of a WWII-era militaristic Japan that inflicted great suffering on the USA and its Asian neighbors.
TOKYO (AP) – A USA veterans group says an American who was held by Japan as a prisoner of war during World War II will accompany President Barack Obama on his historic visit to Hiroshima this week, but the White House said Monday that no such invitation has been issued. On May 10, the White House dropped another Hiroshima-related bomb on the world through an official announcement: President Barack Obama will “make a historic visit to Hiroshima” on May 27. The United States used nuclear weapons to attack Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
But the USA president has made it clear there will be no apology in an interview with Japanese national broadcaster NHK, citing the reality of leaders having to make hard decisions during times of war. “We are successfully proceeding with (US-Japan) reconciliation”.
Critics argue that by not apologizing, Obama will allow Japan to stick to the narrative that paints it as a victim.
“What the Japanese government is doing now is denying the fact that Japanese soldiers committed atrocities and the Japanese nation as a whole committed the war of aggression”.
“I suspect there was a pressure (not to seek an apology) to create an atmosphere that would make it easier for Obama to visit Hiroshima”, Fujimori said. “War must be the last resort-never the first choice”.
The Japanese national flag flutters at half-mast in the foreground of the atomic bomb dome at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, in western Japan.
Ultimately, Obama’s visit may be a sort of Rorschach test, a psychological inkblot test in which viewers see what they are predisposed to perceive.
The letter to Obama said: “your visit (to Hiroshima) will. sanction the Abe Administration’s anti-historical efforts”.
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After being captured, Crowley was taken to Japan and forced to work at the Ashio copper mine in Tochigi Prefecture, just north of Tokyo.
