Obama Visits Hiroshima; Offers No Apology – An Insult To The Dead
By Dr. Vivek Kumar Srivastava
28 May, 2016
Countercurrents.org
US President has visited Hiroshima the place where US committed the worst crime against the humanity by dropping the atom bomb on 6th August 1945 just to press Japan more in the drench after the end of the second world war. Three days later second crime was committed by USA when it dropped the atom bomb on the Nagasaki on 9th August. In both anti human acts more than Two lakhs and ten thousand people were killed, the wounded and ; limped ones were uncountable as the radiation had spread in the nearby areas and for the successive generation the disability was caused.
Now he has come to Hiroshima. He is nobel peace prize winner so he tried to show that he is really sad about the drooping of the bombs. These are rhetoric in which these leaders are adept but where was the souls and the great American traditions and values when such lethal decision was made by his ancestors? The dead in Hiroshima now awake from their graves and stand in front of him and put the same question. Obama or no politicians in USA is capable enough to give the answer of such questions. Their voices are mute and whole America should offer apology for the same. He just sprinkled the salt on the wounds of the dead who still nurse in their graves and chant in unison the same question; why did you drop? Was It not a sin against the humanity?
An analysis of his speech (parts of speech taken from, Time, http://time.com)
Obama says: Seventy-one years ago, on a bright cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed. A flash of light and a wall of fire destroyed a city and demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself.
Analysis: just use of literary words and emotional talks
Obama says: Why do we come to this place, to Hiroshima? We come to ponder a terrible force unleashed in a not-so-distant past. We come to mourn the dead, including over 100,000 Japanese men, women and children, thousands of Koreans, a dozen Americans held prisoner.
Analysis: mention of Koreans and US who are being equated with the main dead people, the Japanese.
Obama says:The world war that reached its brutal end in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was fought among the wealthiest and most powerful of nations. Their civilizations had given the world great cities and magnificent art. Their thinkers had advanced ideas of justice and harmony and truth. And yet the war grew out of the same base instinct for domination or conquest that had caused conflicts among the simplest tribes, an old pattern amplified by new capabilities and without new constraints.
Analysis: no mention of sinful act of US but to talk in confusing manner
Obama says: Yet in the image of a mushroom cloud that rose into these skies, we are most starkly reminded of humanity’s core contradiction. How the very spark that marks us as a species, our thoughts, our imagination, our language, our toolmaking, our ability to set ourselves apart from nature and bend it to our will — those very things also give us the capacity for unmatched destruction.
Analysis: blames the human species not the US thus makes every human as the partner in the attack
Obama says: Science allows us to communicate across the seas and fly above the clouds, to cure disease and understand the cosmos, but those same discoveries can be turned into ever more efficient killing machines.
Analysis: again blame transferred to science and inventions thus saving the crime of US
Obama says: Mere words cannot give voice to such suffering. But 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.
Analysis: lofty talks and again involving all to stop such wars; does US in reality listen to voices of genuineness of the common people? A good rhetoric by Obama
Obama says: And since that fateful day, we have made choices that give us hope. The United States and Japan have forged not only an alliance but a friendship that has won far more for our people than we could ever claim through war. The nations of Europe built a union that replaced battlefields with bonds of commerce and democracy.
Analysis: What is role of NATO what is role of EU IN Ukraine ? Why is there new fondness for India, Japan, South Korea , perhaps to maintain dominance in Far East.
Obama says: Still, every act of aggression between nations, every act of terror and corruption and cruelty and oppression that we see around the world shows our work is never done. We may not be able to eliminate man’s capacity to do evil, so nations and the alliances that we form must possess the means to defend ourselves. But among those nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles, we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them.
Analysis: Why no solid achievement of Nuclear Security Summit? Why Russia not in NSS this time? Why US does not stop transferring the new weapons to Pakistan and Israel and Saudi Arabia?
Obama says: We must change our mind-set about war itself. To prevent conflict through diplomacy and strive to end conflicts after they’ve begun. To see our growing interdependence as a cause for peaceful cooperation and not violent competition.
Analysis: Why US does not come with Russia for joint strike in Syria? Why did US destabilize Iraq and Libya with no control in the post regime changes?
In fact Obama has lost his place in history because he did not offer any apology. In fact he should have accepted the faults but he comes from a country whose ego led to the dropping of the bombs ; then how can he tender the apology?
His speech was full of empty words as he did not address the main issue; why did US go to drop and why the interests of the thousands were not kept in mind? Reality is that Hiroshima and Nagasaki will haunt US and its egoist leaders till the end of this civilization.
Dr. Vivek Kumar Srivastava, presently Assistant Professor in CSJM University[affiliated college], Consultant CRIEPS, email: [email protected]