[Federalist] When John Kerry toured the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and Museum this week before meeting foreign ministers at the G-7 Summit, Reuters reports that he had witnessed "haunting displays [of] photographs of badly burned victims, the tattered and stained clothes they wore and statues depicting them with flesh melting from their limbs."
"It is a stunning display. It is a gut-wrenching display," explained Kerry. "It is a reminder of the depth of the obligation every one of us in public life carries ... to create and pursue a world free from nuclear weapons."
Iran exempted, of course.
But, really, is this the lesson of Hiroshima? That those in public life have an obligation to do away with nuclear weapons? A lot of people might argue that existence of those weapons have saved lives from broader world conflicts and conventional warfare. That includes ending the Second World War sooner.
Yesterday, The Washington Post dutifully reported that, "In Hiroshima, Kerry won’t apologize for atomic bombs dropped on Japan." Technically, he didn't. What we witnessed was one of the administration's inverted non-apology apologies.
Barack Obama will also travel to Japan next month for the G-7. There's a lot of speculation he will visit Hiroshima and offer some sort of apology. (If we're to believe WikiLeaks, U.S. officials have been toying with the idea of having Obama say sorry for Hiroshima for a while now. And it comports well with his history.) |