How long can Obama hold out before apologizing for Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
posted at 1:01 pm on November 10, 2009 by MadisonConservative
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President Barack Obama says he wants to visit the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki sometime during his presidency, but will not have time when he travels to Japan later this week.
In an interview with Japanese broadcaster NHK, Mr. Obama said he would be honored to have the opportunity to visit the two cities that were devastated by U.S. atomic bombs at the end of World War II.
If he does, Mr. Obama will be the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The math here isn’t hard. Of course, he’s going to take any visit to those cities as an opportunity to discuss nuclear disarmament, while countries like Russia and Iran chortle and snicker. Whether he brings the greek pillars with him is uncertain. In order to accomplish this, he faces a mammoth hurdle, one that has been argued and debated for decades: apologizing for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After all, how could he possibly argue that the use of the bomb was justified, or refuse to address the use, if he’s busy trying to use his magical Hope Dust to make all the nuclear weapons of the world vanish into thin air?
Obama has hardly been vacillatory in wringing his hands in guilt over the country that elected him to its highest office. However, if he makes this gesture, it will just be the cherry on top of a weakness sundae that he’s been serving the world since his inauguration. Chavez is currently talking about war with Colombia because he’s seen us flinch. Iran is toying with nuke talks because they know our leader didn’t even have the backbone to address the slaughter of protesters. And Russia? One minute Obama says the missile shield in Poland is dead, the next Biden is planning another. You can imagine what they’re thinking…and what we all should be thinking…
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Blame Truman?
Wethal on November 10, 2009 at 1:27 PM
And the victory-through-defeat/strength-through-weakness tour continues to roll.
Students in my IR class would unhesitatingly claim that the US use of nukes was genocidal (ignoring that genocide is the systematic attempt to eradicate an entire people), and – typically – would consider nothing to the contrary.
I doubt that Barry’s view is much different at all. Despite their anti-nuke frenzy, the Democrats will never be able to purge themselves of what they perceive as shame that it was one of their own who launched ‘em.
(And, for the record, Truman was right to do so.)
Track-A-'Crat on November 10, 2009 at 1:31 PM
This week – when he goes to Japan – he will comment on this saying something that he wants to eliminate nukes so we do not have to have a Hiroshima again.
gamurgis on November 10, 2009 at 1:34 PM
I’d like to know how he would have ended that war then. The Japanese tortured American POW’s, locking them underground and setting them on fire. Forced labor, starvation, disease plus, psychological torture….were the Japanese POW’s treated the same? Have they apologized for that?
Im reading a book called “Ship of Ghosts”, which is the story of the USS Houston. The ship was sunk and the crew was held for 3 yrs by the Japanese. What these men endured is shocking. I am soo sick of this apologies!
becki51758 on November 10, 2009 at 1:40 PM
Expect the apology in 2011. Next year is the 65th anniversary, but unless the economy comes roaring back in 2010, he won’t apologize during an election year that looks to be trouble for the Democrats already, and he certainly isn’t going to do it in 2012 right in the middle of the convention period (depending on when the London Olympics are).
jon1979 on November 10, 2009 at 1:42 PM
the japanese will love this. seriously…
homesickamerican on November 10, 2009 at 1:43 PM
If you look up the Russian word for “Doofus” in a Russian dictionary, you’ll see Obama’s picture.
Daggett on November 10, 2009 at 1:51 PM
Related: Obama Orders Millions of Roses Airlifted to Europe as Part of Massive Overseas Apology Operation http://optoons.blogspot.com/2009/06/obama-orders-millions-of-roses.html
Mervis Winter on November 10, 2009 at 1:54 PM
Get ready, here it comes in…4, 3, 2, 1. Just think how long he has been holding his breath on this one. Exhale slowly, sir, and watch the totus.
Kissmygrits on November 10, 2009 at 3:18 PM
weakness sundae. Love it.
minor quibble:
It’s because Dear Liar was busy taking notes.
rbj on November 10, 2009 at 3:33 PM
I tell you, my husband and his whole family voted for Obama, and I love them dearly, but if Obama dares to go to Japan and apologize for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I might not speak to any of them again.
I am an “atomic bomb baby.” My father was awaiting his orders for the invasion of the main islands of Japan when the bombs were dropped and Japan surrendered. He told me that his unit was told to expect 85% casualties and that he would almost certainly be killed. He was an Army doctor and the Japanese often killed the doctors first; they did not honor the Red Cross at all. Oh yeah, he was drafted too. Most Americans do not know that almost every doctor in training in the U.S. was drafted into the Army Medical Corps, and that hundreds of them were killed.
We also had a good family friend who survived the Bataan Death March. When he came home in 1945, the doctors told him he had the body of a 50-year-old.
Genocide means mass killing of human beings. The Japanese were not human beings in those years, they were animals.
rockmom on November 10, 2009 at 4:05 PM
Well if he does apologize, this may finally convince my mother in law, who was a young bride in the Phillipines during the war, that the prez does not have our best interests at heart.
An apology would be a slap in the face for all who fought, and those that died, in the war with Japan.
Annietxgrl on November 10, 2009 at 4:23 PM
Will he present the Japanese P.M. with a comfort woman too?
andycanuck on November 10, 2009 at 5:12 PM
*snort*
You owe me more merlot.
Great writing; tragically true premise.
Diane on November 10, 2009 at 7:09 PM
Idiot-in-Chief strikes again…
docjohn52 on November 10, 2009 at 9:09 PM
I am seriously expecting him to go back to Germany and apologize for the whole fighting Hitler and the Nazis thing. And carpetbombing those a-holes into oblivion. And for saving the remainder of the Joooooosssss from the concentration camps.
If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the angry dome.
mjk on November 10, 2009 at 9:24 PM
I would put money on his apologizing during this tour. He will also wring his hands over the internment of Japanese Americans (which I believe was wrong, but since this issue has been taken up by the libs to show why our detaining terrorists is wrong all those who were wrongfully detained are being dishonored by this) he will insist that WE were to blame for Pearl Harbor and that our world would be better off had we never used the A-bomb and the millions who would have died in the invasion of Japan would have been the better choice.
One thing about it. This joker has offended so many people over the last week, there will be more people questioning his motives than there have been so far in his term.
The more questions, the more who view his actions as self-promoting, the better.
Mad Mad Monica on November 11, 2009 at 10:19 AM
Down here in Aus our prime minister KRudd is trying to outdo Obama in the apology stakes.
Maybe they have a little side bet as to see who can apologise to more people for things that happened in the past that do nothing more then create a victim mentality in the group being apolgised to.
wakey74 on November 11, 2009 at 6:29 PM