Hiroshima, Japan – US Official: Kerry To Offer No US Apology For Hiroshima

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    U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (C) and G7 foreign ministers visit the Itsukushima Shrine as they take a cultural break from their meetings in nearby Hiroshima to visit Miyajima Island, Japan, April 10, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan ErnstHiroshima, Japan – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry won’t say sorry for America’s atomic bombing of Hiroshima when he visits a revered memorial.

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    A U.S. official traveling with Kerry ruled out an apology ahead of Monday’s tour with other foreign ministers of the Peace Memorial Park and Museum in the city where 140,000 Japanese died from the first of two atomic bombs dropped by the U.S. in the closing days of World War II more than 70 years ago.

    Kerry, who will be the most senior American government official to have stopped by, planned to lay flowers, and was expected to express the sorrow that all feel upon reflection about the bombing — the first use of a nuclear weapon against an enemy in history.

    The official said Kerry intended to use the occasion to promote President Barack Obama’s vision of a nuclear-free world and the need to prevent proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The official previewed Kerry’s plans on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to publicly discuss them before the event.

    Obama has yet to decide whether he might visit Hiroshima and the memorial when he attends a Group of Seven meeting of leaders in central Japan in late May, according to the official.

    The president said in an interview during his first year in office that he would be “honored” to travel to Hiroshima.

    For many years, top U.S. officials avoided going to Hiroshima because of political sensitivities. Many Americans believe the dropping of atomic bombs in August 1945 were justified and hastened the end of the war.

    Japanese survivors’ groups have campaigned for decades to bring top officials from the U.S. and other nuclear weapon states to see Hiroshima’s scars as part of a grassroots movement to abolish nuclear weapons.

    No serving U.S. president has visited the site. It took 65 years for a U.S. ambassador to attend Hiroshima’s annual memorial service, and six more years to win Kerry’s visit.

    The U.S. official said Japan didn’t seek an apology from Kerry, and that neither side is looking in to reopen the question of blame for the various atrocities of the war.

    Instead, he said both countries wanted the event to show the strong ties they developed since peace in 1945 and their shared efforts to promote a peaceful world.

    The museum includes harrowing images of the destruction and shocking exhibits, including the torn clothing of children who perished and skin, fingernails, deformed tongues and other horrible examples of the exposure to the blast and its residual radiation.

    Some explanations mounted on the wall, however, don’t align with the views of all historians and experts in the United States or elsewhere.

    For example, one suggests that the United States used the weapon in part to justify the extraordinary costs of the Manhattan Project to develop it. Disagreements over motivations and possible justification rage among historians, ethicists and others to this day.


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    7 years ago

    What a surprise! Given this administrations kissing the Castro’s tuchas and the Obamaination bowing to the Saudi King. I’m surprised that he hasn’t offered the Japanese an apology & reparations. Had they minded their own business and not joined forces with hitler Y’SM and perpetrated a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor it would never have happened!

    7 years ago

    ישר כח..

    7 years ago

    There’s nothing to apologize for. Just because this Japanese regime isn’t fascist, doesn’t mean the U.S. should apologize.

    7 years ago

    After nearly seventy one years, it still bothers me how Japan portrays itself as “the victim”, and how its textbooks in their equivalent of elementary, middle and high schools (as well as their universities), omit any reference to the horrible atrocities, which the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy perpetrated against millions of civilians in China, Korea, Singapore, the Marshall Islands, the Solomon Islands, the Caroline Islands, the Gilbert Islands, the Dutch East Indies, Wake Island, and especially in Okinawa. The Japanese have never paid a penny in compensation to the families of GI’s, whom they starved, beat, tortured, or murdered. Also, the Japanese urged the native residents of Okinawa to jump off cliffs to their deaths, rather than surrender to the Americans. They treated our POW’s horribly, and would have killed thousands of POWs, if Japan was invaded. 500,000-1,000,000 GI’s would have been killed in that invasion, plus millions of Japanese civilians. The two atomic bombs finally ended the War in the Pacific. Japan was given ample opportunity to surrender, but refused to surrender, because of their code of Bushido, which taught that “it was dishonorable to surrender”.

    7 years ago

    The Japanese war machine was killing around 100,000 people every month when it was stopped by the bombs. Its gratuitous sadism was far worse than the Nazis’.