To all of you complaining about Obama's groundbreaking visit to Hiroshima: Please, just stop it. Your ignorance of the issue and what his visit really means is appalling.
The truth is, in no way, shape, or form did Obama apologize for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Whether or not the bombings were justified is an argument for another time, but the fact remains that Obama did not express any belief that he or the United States was sorry for dropping the bombs. You might claim that his mere act of visitation constitutes an apology of sorts, but that's a shaky and unsubstantiated interpretation. If you still don't believe me, here are his exact words, courtesy of "USA Today" : "We come to Hiroshima to ponder the terrible forces unleashed in the not so distant past. We come to mourn the dead." I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like an apology to me.
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Yes, Obama did express his sympathy for the victims. What is so objectionable about that? The vast majority of those who died in the bombing were civilians, and as Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not military or industrial targets, they also had little to do with the Japanese war effort. Many of them died horrible deaths as a result of the bomb; there is nothing wrong with acknowledging the harsh reality that warfare is terrible and devastating. Over 200,000 civilians were killed by the atomic bombings and that is no small number at all. In addition, Obama also claimed that the visit was an opportunity to remember all of the victims of the Second World War, not just Japanese victims. So really, his visit was about decrying the horrors of war, not apologizing for one specific action.
More importantly, Obama's visit also served a diplomatic purpose. Our country has been allied with Japan for over seventy years since the war's end, and to pick a fight with the Japanese PM over a past occurrence simply for the sake of national pride would be foolish and counterproductive. Japan is one of our most important allies in the Far East and Obama was simply building better relations with the Japanese. To use this as an opportunity to attack Obama demonstrates an ignorance of how diplomacy and foreign policy works.
Let's face the reality: to criticize Obama over a simple visit to a war memorial is foolish and those who would use it to attack him are either just plain ignorant or searching for an excuse to denigrate our president.
