To the subject, I think Obama gave a terrific speech... Just what was needed, no apology for the A bombs, proper comments about the barbaric and horrible war and expressing the need for change in the actions of humanity.. He did not point fingers or accept any blame for the actions of 70 years ago.

Those of you who thing otherwise, is it a wise mind set to keep the emotions and views of 70 years ago in the world we face today? No it is not. Many in the ME seem to insist on that overview and look at the unending horrs that has brought to them..

Streatup expressed this very well.. excellent post..

Damn computer....Sorry for the goofyk words.... will not fix myk typing...

(Breitbart) – President Barack Obama told the world on Friday in Hiroshima that the American decision to drop nuclear bombs on Japan in 1945 arose from humanity’s worst instincts, including “nationalist fervor or religious zeal.”

The war that ended in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he said, “grew out of the same base instinct for domination or conquest that had caused conflicts among the simplest tribes, an old pattern amplified by new capabilities and without new constraints.”

The speech — delivered on the eve of Memorial Day weekend — was billed by the White House as anything but an apology, but Obama’s words betrayed his true sentiments.

Obama, a native of Honolulu who grew up near Pearl Harbor, said nothing about the fact that Japan started the war; nothing about the fact that the Japanese were responsible for the slaughter of millions of civilians throughout Asia and the Pacific; nothing about the fact that the Japanese refused to surrender after hundreds of thousands had already been killed in conventional bombing.

Obama implied that Americans had not yet considered the human cost of the atomic bomb: we had to “force ourselves to imagine the moment the bomb fell” and “force ourselves to feel the dread of children confused by what they see,” he said.

He described the moral dilemmas of nuclear warfare as if no president, and no American, had considered them before. But he left out the moral case for ending the war, and the hundreds of thousands of deaths avoided because of Hiroshima.

The contrast to President Harry S. Truman could not have been clearer.

Reflecting on the decision to bomb Japan years later, Truman declared: “That bomb caused the Japanese to surrender, and it stopped the war. I don’t care what the crybabies say now, because they didn’t have to make the decision.”

As he has done before, Obama cast a moral equivalence between different civilizations, implying that Americans were just as bad as the Imperial Japanese, or anyone else.

But he went further, casting doubt on the American effort in World War II itself: “Nations arise telling a story that binds people together in sacrifice and cooperation, allowing for remarkable feats. But those same stories have so often been used to oppress and dehumanize those who are different.”

There is really only one response to Obama’s gesture, and it goes beyond media disputation and moral condemnation.

It must be made clear that at Hiroshima, Obama represented no one but himself — not the Greatest Generation who fought the war, and not the generations of Americans who have grown up enjoying the freedom that victory over Japan secured.

The U.S. Congress declared war on Japan the day after Pearl Harbor. Millions of Americans fought to save the country, and civilization. Hundreds of thousands died, often in brutal hand-to-hand combat against a fanatically determined Japanese enemy.

It is the inescapable duty of the Congress of the United States today to censure President Barack Obama for casting doubt on the sacrifices and motivations of the Americans who fought the Second World War — on the eve of Memorial Day, no less.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/05/27/hiroshima-censure-obama/

http://www.teaparty.org/congress-must-censure-president-obama-hiroshima-speech-167603/#sthash.8XUW20mI.dpuf

Nothing Obama said takes anything away from those who fought in the war. He was referring to the factors that lead to the war in the first place. That's what he meant when he said the war that the bombs ended "grew out of the same base instinct for domination or conquest..." Obviously, Obama knows history well enough to understand that the war in the Pacific was the result of competition between imperial ambitions in South East Asia that was going on since the U.S. forced the Philippines into submission in 1902.



The Philippines, where U.S. General Jacob Smith famously issued the order to "kill everyone over the age of ten", is proof positive that the U.S. was just as much in the business of taking freedom away from people as the Japanese were. The Filipinos were fighting for their independence, the Americans were fighting for imperialism. And Obama was dead right about the fanaticism that allows a nation of people to get behind the belligerence of their leaders. It happened here and it happened in Japan too and I think that's the message Obama was presenting which obviously went over your head.

How embarrassing that in the wake of this international moment, Americans would be screaming for censure because their pride was hurt by a humanist gesture.

Loki, There is no doubt that the Japanese military and government were murdering monsters during WW11.They did everything you claim and much more, but that doesn't remove the tragedy of the atomic bomb dropping on two Japanese's cities. A lot of innocent people died in those atomic raids. Historians will debate the necessity of that action for years and years, but it doesn't do anything to bring those men, women and children that died in a fraction of a second back or those that suffered for years after. It doesn't hurt to express sympathy for those that died seventy years ago.

Truman was a lying sack of shit. Japan was already defeated, they just hadn't surrendered yet. They had no navy left they had no air power left. In fact we were flying dispatches over the main island like it was a shooting gallery at a carnival. Tokyo suffered more death and destruction from our conventional bombs than Nagasaki did from Fat Man. Yes, far too many young men died in that war, on both sides and if our only intention was to stop Japanese aggression we could have stopped right there, we didn't even need to invade them... But we had other intentions, ultimately we were looking for the same thing Japan was, to reign supreme. And so we dropped the bombs just to prove to the world that we're capable. It was an asshole move and the whole world knows it. Obama was the first president with the courage to confront it.

I think Admiral William D. Leahy sums it up pretty well when he said...

"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were almost defeated and ready to surrender...in being the first to use it, we...adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages."

---Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy,
Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during World War II

What did Obama say that deserved censure? He said that the US decision to use the bomb arose from humanity's worst instincts. I suppose the millions of innocent civilians deliberately killed by the Imperial Japanese Army was an example of humanity's best instincts? I wonder what more than a half million murdered Chinese civilians during the infamous Rape of Nanking thought of the wonderful altruism of the Japanese Empire? That's only a fraction of the death toll of Chinese civilians, courtesy of those oh so humanitarian Japanese. I wonder what the thousands of US prisoners in the Bataan Death March and subsequent captivity thought of Japanese motives? I mean the ones who managed to survive.

I have time to address one of your facts according to Straight Up: I believe you said

"To defend, no - but to seek retribution, yes it is, especially when such retribution seeks to kill thousands of civilians that were not involved in the original attack in the first place. Not that your example is applicable anyway, the Japanese didn't attack our country or our civilians. They attacked a military base that we established on some islands far from home with the purpose of asserting a military presence as close to Asia as possible."

In your infinite wisdom and knowledge of things and events historical, dipstick, did you ever, perchance, hear of a little place in Alaska called "Dutch Harbor?" The Japanese sent a Naval force and several thousand troops there. Alaska was US soil. Did you think it belonged to Belgium?

Yeah, Dutch Harbor comes up ALL the TIME whenever someone like you is desperate for a reason to blame Japan for the war. Before you start knocking things over in your excitement, let me point a few things out, like context... My statement was a direct response to your assertion that "When one's country is attacked and thousands of it's citizens killed, it is not "belligerence" to defend yourself and seek retribution against the aggressor."

First off, Alaska was NOT an integral part of our country at the time. Alaska wasn't admitted to the Union until 1959. When the Japanese were there, it was an incorporated territory, operated by commercial interests based in San Fransisco and Seattle. So it was essentially the same thing Virginia was in 1700... A colony operating under a corporate charter issued by some other country. Alaska was not a sovereign nation nor was it part of a sovereign nation. Now, according to your own logic when trying to excuse our "intervention" in the Philippines, that makes the Japanese arrival a lesser issue. Funny how you vacillate on your principles to suit your argument. Getting back to the context of my response to your excuse for retribution, let me ask you this... Where are the thousands of U.S. citizens that the Japanese killed? You said "When one's country is attacked and thousands of it's citizens killed..." So, are you saying there were thousands of U.S. citizens in Dutch Harbor and the Japanese killed them? I think not. Here's an excerpt from the official web site for the city of Unalaska, which is the only city in the area of Dutch Harbor...

Unalaska was occupied by U.S. armed forces during World War II. The build-up began in 1941 and the influx of construction crews and armed forces personnel forever changed the face of the village. On June 3 and 4, 1942, Unalaska was bombed by the Japanese. Shortly thereafter, all Native residents were forced to leave the island and were interned in camps in Southeast Alaska where overcrowding and unsanitary conditions were the norm, and many lives were lost. This was not a military evacuation particular to Unalaska Island; the entire native population of the Aleutian region was evacuated, as well as the Pribilof Islands to the north. When the people returned in 1945, they found that U.S. troops had ransacked and vandalized most of their homes. Four small villages were never repopulated (Attu, Makushin, Kashega and Biorka) and their returning inhabitants were absorbed into Unalaska’s native population.

That doesn't sound much like the American heartland. Notice they start off by saying the place was occupied by U.S. armed forces... It actually sounds more like a claim, which of course it was... a claim that was in fact almost as close to Japan as it was to the United States... a claim that when you look at the map of the North Pacific becomes an obvious strategic point in the imperial competition for the Pacific.

So, now that I've thrashed your argument about the Japanese attacking our country and killing thousands of U.S. citizens (and I'm looking forward to see what kind of insult you come up with this time) Let me return to the bigger point I made in my response. That any attack is a valid argument for defense but not retribution. On this point I am simply taking the Christian view. I may not be a Holy roller but I was raised Christian and even though I have serious doubts about the Trinity, which I suspect is a political invention, I do understand the values that Jesus actually taught. Among them being forgiveness, which is the opposite of retribution.

Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY," says the Lord. - Romans 12:19