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Obama’s Hiroshima Embrace

Posted May 27th, 2016 at 4:24 pm (UTC-4)
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It was a solemn walk down the promenade for President Barack Obama with Japan’s Prime Minister. With every step, Hiroshima’s Atomic Dome came into focus, the Pond of Peace shimmering brightly thanks to the Eternal Flame licking the sky.
After delicately placing a wreath at the foot of the Memorial Cenotaph, Obama moved to the podium. He took a few extra seconds to begin, to honor the moment: the first President of the United States to visit the city that a predecessor bombed with the deadliest weapon known to man.
Obama acknowledged the magnitude of that decision without apology. He appealed to all nuclear nations, including the United States, “to have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them.”
He mourned the innocent from all of the world’s wars, saying “we have a shared responsibility to look directly into the eye of history and ask what we must do differently to curb such suffering again.”
Hindsight, they say, is 20-20. And the farther away we get from a historical event, the more clarity we seem to gain.

Obama to Hiroshima: Acknowledge or Apologize?

Posted May 10th, 2016 at 4:10 pm (UTC-4)
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President Obama’s decision to be the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima attracted plenty of chatter even before the final decision was announced.
Once Secretary of State John Kerry paid his respects during an April meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Japan, it seemed inevitable that Obama would do the same during this month’s G7 summit.
The United States remains the only nation to use a nuclear weapon, forcing Japan to surrender, ending World War II. A Smithsonian Institution exhibit to mark the 50th anniversary of the Enola Gay’s mission to drop the first atomic bomb drew widespread criticism for raising questions about the necessity of using such a weapon of mass destruction. President Harry Truman’s decision to do so remains one of the world’s most scrutinized, 71 years later.
Visiting Hiroshima, Obama will have to balance the burden of his predecessor’s decision with acknowledgement of the result — and vision of the future.

Why Obama Will Almost Certainly Visit Hiroshima

Posted April 19th, 2016 at 4:44 pm (UTC-4)
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It’s a sign that, despite the passage of decades, the American role in unleashing nuclear terror remained a sore subject. Obama’s Hiroshima visit, following so closely the 70th anniversary memorials last August, could provide the context for a less emotional assessment.

Haunted by Hiroshima

Posted April 11th, 2016 at 3:20 pm (UTC-4)
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For Mr. Kerry, President Barack Obama and anyone else who assumes the mantle of leadership, there should be one overriding goal when it comes to nuclear weapons — to work toward a world free of them entirely. The horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki should never been unleashed again…