BARACK OBAMA drove through appreciative crowds along the approach to Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park, and on his departure an hour and a half later they surged into the park to where he had offered a wreath before its cenotaph. Mr Obama first visited the museum that serves as a reminder of the appalling human cost of the bomb that the Americans dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th 1945. He then met some of the elderly hibakusha, the dwindling number of Japanese who had been in the city on that fateful day but who had survived the blast. As schoolchildren on bicycles, young parents and elderly rushed in to savour the atmosphere, a sombre mood gave way to something approaching good cheer.
Beyond Hiroshima, very many Japanese welcomed Mr Obama’s visit, even though it came with no formal apology for the bombing of civilians in Hiroshima and, three days later, in Nagasaki. The two attacks and the radiation that followed killed over 200,000 people, mainly civilians. The bombings might seem to bear the hallmarks of a crime against humanity. But Americans have long argued that they hastened to a...Continue reading
from Asia http://ift.tt/27W6G54
EmoticonEmoticon