First of all, Obama’s speech at Hiroshima wasn’t terrible.
I have to say that because Facebook and right-wing websites are full of indignant protests that Obama “apologized for dropping the bomb.”
No he didn’t. I have the text of the speech in front of me now and nowhere does he apologize. He said it was an awful thing, and who in their right mind would disagree? He said that war was an awful thing. Ditto.
The speech was a diplomatic homily. It says basically that war is terrible, and that atomic weapons have made it even more terrible. It avoided blame and dwelt on how our achievements in science and technology can be applied to horrific destruction.
This is scarcely an original observation but it was well said.
He said we should pursue the elimination of nuclear weapons, a goal both Ronald Reagan and Admiral Hyman Rickover “the father of the nuclear navy” endorsed.
He rather surprised me when he said, “We may not realize this goal in my lifetime, but persistent effort can roll back the possibility of catastrophe,” because Obama always struck me as a “Let’s make us a utopia and we’ll get it done yesterday” kind of guy.
Obama did mention the atrocities of the Axis powers in an oblique sort of way.
“The world war that reached its brutal end in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was fought among the wealthiest and most powerful of nations. Their civilizations had given the world great cities and magnificent art. Their thinkers had advanced ideas of justice and harmony and truth. And yet the war 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. In the span of a few years, some 60 million people would die. Men, women, children, no different than us.”
He didn’t come out and say, “This is why you had it coming” but did anyone really expect him to?
The fact is an awful lot of people who don’t like Obama, and I’m not a fan myself, assumed he apologized and blamed America for dropping the bombs because that’s what they expected from him.
Whoever wrote the speech did a pretty good job of walking the fine line between commemorating the dead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and reminding his hosts that the government of Imperial Japan did bring it on themselves.
I have heard arguments for and against Truman’s decision to drop the bombs, and some of the arguments against come from rock-ribbed conservatives.
I myself think the arguments for carry more weight The bombing of Hiroshima came only two months after the 82-day battle of Okinawa had ended. A battle that cost 14,900 allied deaths and 80,000 deaths overall, as Japanese soldiers and civilians fought with fanatic courage to the bitter end.
Many of us have seen the film of a woman throwing her baby off a cliff, because they’d been told the Americans would torture and kill them.
I cannot imagine what she felt like when instead, the Americans fed them.
Obama gently reminded the Japanese that the Allied victory brought them a better way of life, a better philosophy than the fanatic militarism of their past.
“My own nation’s story began with simple words: All men are created equal and endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Realizing that ideal has never been easy, even within our own borders, even among our own citizens. But staying true to that story is worth the effort. It is an ideal to be strived for, an ideal that extends across continents and across oceans. The irreducible worth of every person, the insistence that every life is precious, the radical and necessary notion that we are part of a single human family — that is the story that we all must tell.”
Realizing this ideal between our two countries came at a terrible cost. A cost that will without doubt be paid again and again, because there are evil men in power in the world still.
I don’t say this often, but good job Mr. President.