Posted on 10/12/2011 11:51:46 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Don’t worry too much about this story. I’m sure Barack Obama would have waited for Japan's apology for Pearl Harbor, the Rape of Nanking, the Bataan Death March, the treatment of American POWs …
The cable indicates the Japanese government was then effectively discouraging Obama from visiting Hiroshima despite growing expectations over it following his call for a world free from nuclear weapons in a speech in Prague in April 2009.
The cable, dated Sept. 3, 2009, and sent to U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton, reported Japan’s then Vice Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka telling Ambassador John Roos on Aug. 28 that antinuclear groups would speculate over whether the president would visit Hiroshima in light of his Prague speech on nuclear nonproliferation.
“He underscored, however, that both governments must temper the public’s expectations on such issues, as the idea of President Obama visiting Hiroshima to apologize for the atomic bombing during World War II is a ‘non-starter’,” said the cable.
The most fascinating part of this was the discouragement given by the Japanese Vice Foreign Minister. Presumably, a Japanese government that got an American President to bow to their national sense of victimhood from the consequences of launching a brutal war of conquest in the 1930s — bowing in the rhetorical sense, of course — would have acquired a huge amount of political goodwill. The government in Tokyo at that time certainly needed a political boost.
Why not let Obama apologize for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then? For one thing, Japan understands better than most that they rely on the American nuclear umbrella for their safety — and not so much from China but from North Korea. At some point, Japan has to decide whether to adopt its own nuclear deterrent to push Kim Jong-il into real negotiations. The last thing they need is an American President using Hiroshima as a platform for unilateral disarmament while China bristles with nukes and the DPRK keeps testing more of its home-grown nuclear devices, which they are apparently preparing to do again.
Obama wisely took Yabunaka’s advice and decided not to address the issue at all. The fact that the Japanese had to tell Obama to curtail his 2009 apology tour is both ironic and, well, appalling.
Those are two great toons. It’s amazing we’ve reached this point.
FR TEXT (2009) "Skip to comments. OBAMA Nixes Plans For Hiroshima Apology Tour (Afraid of US Electorate): My Translation from Japan Sankei Shimbun News, Tokyo, Japan (Original in Japanese) ^ | 19 September 2010 | Rui Sasaki, Reporter Posted on 2010年9月19日 9:07:51 by AmericanInTokyo Sources within the Obama Administration as well as with the ruling Japan Democratic Party here have leaked and confirmed that Obama (and Japan side) have come to the conclusion to make the decision to cancel any side trip to Hiroshima, Japan in November as part of O's ongoing worldwide apology tour. (Excerpt) Read more at sankei.jp.msn.com ... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; Click to Add Topic KEYWORDS: 2010; apology; apologytour; bho44; bhofail; bow; elections; hiroshima; japan; nagasaki; obama; obamabow; obowma; roos; sankei; shazai; Click to Add Keyword -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Report Abuse | Bookmark ] This trip has been in the background for nearly two years; Obama was not able to make it last fall and has wanted to go there and express remorse for American Military Action in 広島 and 長崎 in the closing days of World War II. His Ambassador to Japan has already done this--or so it was locally interpreted. Now the Japanese language Conservative Sankei News, large circulation daily in Japan is breaking with news from both D.C. and in Tokyo among knowledgeable US-Japan sources that OBAMA HAS DEFINITIVELY TOLD JAPAN TO NOT EXPECT HIM TO MAKE THE VISIT TO HIROSHIMA when he is next in Japan in November.The reasons stated were the touchy US 2010 mid-term elections, the sentiment this act may generate with the American People, overall US-Japan relations factors, and others. Anothere reason, noted in the headline, was internal DJP leadership election issues which could not bring Japan's side to agreement on how to proceed with this. Japanese head of story: オバマ氏広島訪問見送り 民主代表選の政治空白で事前協議できず English synopsis translation of the original Japanese language article just out now through Sankei. [Conservative and patriotic friends in the blogosphere: If referencing this story word-for-word on your blog in an effort to viralize this report, please quote Free Repubilc and "AiT", providing a direct link to this FR story]. This concludes my overview translation and synopsis. 1 posted on 2010年9月19日 9:08:00 by AmericanInTokyo [ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies | Report Abuse] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: DTogo Ping! 2 posted on 2010年9月19日 9:09:48 by AmericanInTokyo (They should count their blessings The American People are going to take power from them peacefully..) [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies | Report Abuse] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: AmericanInTokyo BTTT 3 posted on 2010年9月19日 9:10:50 by Jet Jaguar (*) [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies | Report Abuse
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