President Barack Obama is touring Asia this week, but’- like all of his presidential predecessors haven’t, since the United States dropped an atomic bomb over Japan in 1945 ‘- won’t be making a stop in Hiroshima, despite yet another invitation to do so. Obama, riding a campaign emblazoned with ideas of change, had a chance to make a big one in Japan over the weekend, but didn’t accept it. Thus, the Hiroshima elephant remains in the room that Obama shares with Japan, and even though few expect an apology, it seems duly time for at least some respectful recognition.’
Sixty-four years have passed since the United States became the first and only nation to ever use nuclear weapons against another country. Since then, the event has been rather put in the background, and now, decades later, the appropriate window for an apology has passed. But it isn’t unrealistic to expect a president with the kind of political character Obama has, after having received this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, to visit Hiroshima and take on the responsibility that 64 years worth of American foreign policy have shirked. The dropping of an atomic weapon isn’t something that can ever be forgotten, and no matter how many years pass, the event can never be actually disregarded. So it doesn’t make sense that America’s leaders would ignore invitations to visit Hiroshima and acknowledge the horrible event that took place there. It’s no longer a politically tenuous issue, and there ideally would only be sentiments of good will toward an ally country that should have motivated Obama to take that historic step.
America has changed since 1945, and so has its relationship with Japan. Its leaders have changed, its priorities have changed, its history has changed. Obama taking the time to accept the invitation to Hiroshima rather than snubbing it as has been done presidency after presidency would have been a concrete example of the change he has, according to his innumerable speeches, inspired in this country. It wouldn’t have taken much for Obama to have accepted the invitation, and it would have been a small gesture that would have put to bed many years of tension, shame and pseudo-resolution.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
