Freedom Line Blog

Given enough time, President Obama will probably find occasion to apologize for that act of wanton American aggression at Lexington and Concord during a state visit to the United Kingdom.

For now, however, the President is contenting himself with paying penance for America’s 20th century “sins”. When Obama’s Asia trip took him to Japan over the weekend, former New York Times military correspondent Richard Halloran noted that the President hinted at a press conference that he may accept an invitation that no previous Commander-in-Chief has ever entertained — a visit to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Per Halloran:

Many Japanese, particularly left-wing organizations, would most likely demand that the US apologize for dropping the bombs, which would stir up rancor in the US. That would call into question the judgment of President Harry Truman, who made the decision to drop the bombs. In turn, that would put President Obama in a politically difficult position.

Among Americans, veterans of World War II, especially survivors of Japan’s surprise attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, would be vigilant for any sign of remorse for an action that many believe ended World War II with Japan’s surrender, sparing the lives of tens of thousands of Americans poised to invade Japan.

And the veterans would be right.  Not only did Truman’s courageous decision prevent widespread American military deaths, it also likely prevented the millions of Japanese military and civilian casualties that would have resulted from the urban warfare that a ground invasion would have brought.  It also was almost certainly responsible for preventing the planned Japanese execution of Allied POWs  (a slaughter of 100,000 — or 2.5 times more than the initial death count from Nagasaki).

It’s bad enough that Obama would even entertain the notion of recoiling from the moral superiority of the Allied cause in World War II.  Even worse (if utterly predictable at this point) was his tortured use of Japan as a model for his dream of the world as a nuclear-free Fantasia:

“Indeed, Japan serves as an example to the world that true peace and power can be achieved by taking this path. For decades, Japan has enjoyed the benefits of peaceful nuclear energy, while rejecting nuclear arms development – and by any measure, this has increased Japan’s security, and enhanced its position.”

I wish there was a pithy one-liner to capture the stunning stupidity of that statement. Let’s just put it this way: Obama, his speechwriters, or both are historically illiterate.  Japan hasn’t ‘rejected’ nuclear arms development, so much as it has had the United States government preventing it from remilitarizing for nearly 65 years.  And were it not for the substantial American military presence and security guarantee enveloping the island nation, its nuclear neighbors in China and North Korea would have swallowed it years ago.

The lesson here is not about the benevolence of a nuclear-free world. It’s about the benevolence of American power. What are the odds we’d hear that message in presidential remarks at Hiroshima?