Obama will not apologize for Hiroshima attack, he tells Japanese TV

[JevyDuty 2,961]

15 minutes ago, YourSweet666 said:

 

That's what you are taught over there I guess.

I don't agree and war crimes are war crimes. One evil deed doesn't justify another, a 100 times worse.

A war crime is not declaring war before you attack a nation. It's called a sucker punch. At this point, Germany and Japan were killing civilians as well but you want to point at the US. 

I guess that's how logic works over there.

[MonsterOfSpain 8,331]

3 minutes ago, FATCAT said:

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It's surprising to read that from a Bernie supporter, those words sound like something a Trump supporter would say.

[FATCAT 60,888]

4 minutes ago, MonsterOfSpain said:

It's surprising to read that from a Bernie supporter, those words sound like something a Trump supporter would say.

How is it even remotely "Trump-like"? Trump spews hate. Nothing I said was hateful.

[lego 44,165]

2 minutes ago, Larry Hill said:

A war crime is not declaring war before you attack a nation. It's called a sucker punch. At this point, Germany and Japan were killing civilians as well but you want to point at the US. 

I guess that's how logic works over there.

 

Mass murder of civilians in revenge and breaking international laws of war - are called war crimes, everywhere.

 

http://global.britannica.com/topic/war-crime

 

https://www.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_rul_rule156

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/11650752/US-museum-must-call-Hiroshima-and-Nagasaki-war-crimes-say-Japanese.html

 

 

[uo111 5,282]

32 minutes ago, YourSweet666 said:

 

That's what you are taught over there I guess.

I don't agree and war crimes are war crimes. One evil deed doesn't justify another, a 100 times worse.

This screams ignorance. Research Japanese behavior before and during the war. They commited war crimes at least on par with the Nazis, just because they could.

 

It wasn't for revenge. It saved millions. And the UK agreed to dropping the bomba as well.

[teo 609]

I think y'all need to research how they choose to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki what was the intention behind these bombings that makes them so horrible. Their idea was to show how powerful they are by wiping off an entire city with a single bomb. I'm not saying Japan was on the right! But I think some of you have this idea that things went down like the Japanese attacked Pearl harbor and the next week y'all dropped the nukes and saved millions of people on both sides by ending the war which is not how it happened...

[lego 44,165]

6 minutes ago, uo111 said:

This screams ignorance. Research Japanese behavior before and during the war. They commited war crimes at least on par with the Nazis, just because they could.

 

It wasn't for revenge. It saved millions. And the UK agreed to dropping the bomba as well.

 

Yeah I don't believe in that and not every historian agrees with that. There is a debate for a reason.

 

Japanese war crimes don't justify American war crimes. 

 

[420 1,042]

Well, it's not his fault that it happened. He was not a part of the bombing iirc.

Just like Japan's PM said some time not long ago that he apologized publicly for WWII and he said that it would be the last time that he would do it. I know he did that because Japanese people consider their soldiers heroes no matter what they do, they do it for the country. But still, going in front of the cameras just to say sorry for the same old thing every year is such a waste of time.

It happened a long long time ago. Do these leaders need to apologize every year for something that happened years ago. Should Italy apologize to Greece? Should European countries apologize to their former colonies every year?

I don't know, but I think it's pointless to say sorry for what you didn't do that happened years and years ago.

[ItsTommyBitch 12,640]

I'm conflicted

On one hand, I think that there's a hell of a lot of mystery and misinformation surrounding just how necessary the bomb(s) were, so its hard to have a clear opinion in that matter... I do think, knowing that I probably will never know the actual numbers or statistics and having considered all of the options that I know existed,  dropping two atomic bombs and causing long-lasting, generational damage to a country is quite inhumane, not to mention disproportionate. There also was a lot of Anti-Japanese sentiment amongst the general public, and to say that it had absolutely 0 influence on the decision seems also a bit naive. President's and their cabinets, military leaders, etc. cannot perfectly claim to be unbiased all of the time, even with lives on the line, and sometimes especially with lives on the line  Trying to rationalize it with "Oh, but they did worse!!" and "But everyone agreed it was the right thing to do!" and "They exhausted all options" is really such murky waters to me, like I said its hard to be objective, so I avoid this kind of argument personally.

For me, I actually expected Obama to apologize, because hes pretty much proven that he has a great deal of empathy and understanding of issues larger than him that is.. well not just a surface level appreciation, or a fake one. He seems like he honestly gets it. I can't say the same about many president's retrospectively (and from second-hand sources) So, It would've been inline with the image he has been presenting, especially during his second term to apologize anyway. Not because he personally takes responsibility, as it is not his to take, but because he has the respect and humility, as well as modesty to apologize for something larger than just himself. I can understand the argument that yes, its not his personal fault, so why should he apologize, but I think thats a weak argument. Saying something as "simple" as sorry is not (despite grossly common belief  ) about relieving yourself of grief, or casting it aside; that's selfishness. It should be selfless. When you hurt someone, on any level, saying "sorry" does not remove your guilt, it's not suddenly "Well, they didn't accept my apology, so they can stay offended all they want" or whatever  

Anyway, I could ramble about apologies for a while, but I think that apologizing is a "bigger" action, and conveys strength rather than weakness. I'm actually still pretty shocked he didn't apologize, it seems like hes randomly trying to appear "strong", but I think its misguided and possibly politically motivated.

I guess i'm not that conflicted afterall, I think not apologizing sends a message the same way apologizing does, and I think the message apologizing sends is more beneficial to society at large than not apologizing  Oh well.

[Morphine Prince 109,653]

I don't think he needs to apologize. 

That being said it's still debated whether the bomb needed to be dropped. Many historians think it was just a way for the US to basically tell everyone else "don't **** with us" 

The war would've ended with less casualties than predicted even if it hadn't dropped.

Japan wasn't innocent at all and I'm aware they've apologized to some nations. 

[uo111 5,282]

58 minutes ago, YourSweet666 said:

 

Yeah I don't believe in that and not every historian agrees with that. There is a debate for a reason.

 

Japanese war crimes don't justify American war crimes. 

 

The reason I said you were ignorant was because you think the nukes are "100x worse" than what the Japanese did. Which means that either you have a very odd moral compass, or don't actually know what the Japanese did. The Japanese war crimes were truly horrendous.

Of course war crimes don't justify war crimes. But killing 250,000 people to save a million or more does, or at the very least it has a much larger moral backing. The debate only exists by idealist who can't accept the facts of war or conspiracy theorist who believe we dropped the bombs to show up Russia and that Japan was totes mcgotes gonna surrender, which is a baseless claim. Russia already knew about the bombs after all.

[Economy 52,842]

3 hours ago, Hooker said:

No one should have to apologize for their ancestors, just as you shouldn't hold the actions of the past generations on the new. Feel empathy for what happened, learn from the mistakes and prevent them happening again together. 

Tbh. Virtually no one responsible for it is alive anymore. Its history done

 

The US tried to invade and anex Canada in war of 1812 now we have the most interlinked economy and financial market in the world

 

Past is the past. Lets move on.

[MJHolland 12,725]

Good, an apology isn't needed. 

Every living historian will tell you that the bombs saved lives in the long run by ending the war. It was a necessary evil, but Japan got in bed with Nazi Germany at the time and sanction the killing of millions of Jews, blacks, gypsies, and gays. Sorry if I don't feel empathy for Nazi Japan. 

[MJHolland 12,725]

1 hour ago, YourSweet666 said:

 

Yeah I don't believe in that and not every historian agrees with that. There is a debate for a reason.

 

Japanese war crimes don't justify American war crimes. 

 

Japan's war crimes at the time, as well as their #1 partner in crime Nazi Germany, warranted the bombs. It was the only way to stop the war in the pacific, and nearly every historian believes it saved lives. You can either continue to be a hype-emotional observer of history and say they were absolutely unnecessary, or you can look at thing objectively and see that the bombs saved lives. 

At the end of the day, Japan and Germany killed more innocent civilians in far more torturous ways. The bombs showed the world that the US and allies wouldn't tolerate crimes against humanity with two swift blows and that was it. No torture camps, no animosity. It was an act of humanity. 

[TiphEret 1,320]

If a country apologize doesn't it make them accountable for reparations? And that's why they are usually avoided, similarly to Turkey that will never recognize the Armenian genocide.