At Hiroshima, Obama Faces Difficult Choices2/By MOTOKO RICHMAY 26, 2016

Asia Pacific
At Hiroshima, Obama Faces Difficult Choices
By MOTOKO RICHMAY 26, 2016
 
When President Obama arrives in Hiroshima, Japan, on Friday, he will be the first sitting American president to visit the site where the United States first used an atomic bomb, killing about 140,000 people and leading to the end of World War II. The visit has presented the White House with fraught choices, none of which will make everyone happy.
オバマ大統領が、金曜日、日本の広島に着くと、彼は、アメリカ合衆国が、約14万人の人々を殺戮し、第二次世界戦争を終結に導こうとする原子爆弾を最初に使った遺跡を訪れる初めての現職の大統領になるでしょう。その訪問は、誰一人仕合せにする事のない苦しい選択をホワイトゥハウスに迫った。

18:53 2016/07/21木

Where should Obama visit?
オバマは、何処を訪れる？

The White House has said that the president will visit Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and lay a wreath at the cenotaph commemorating the bombing victims. In the context of Hiroshima, these sites are fairly politically neutral, honoring peace and lost lives. But the inscription on the monument reads “rest in peace for the error shall not be repeated,” raising the charged question of which or whose error it refers to.
ホワイトゥハウスは、大統領は広島平和記念公園を訪れ、爆撃犠牲者を追悼する記念碑に花輪を置くだろう。広島という場面にあって、これらの遺跡は、平和と失われた命に敬意を表して、繊細な政治的中立を保っている。「安らかに眠れ、誤りは繰り返されないから。」どちらの或いは誰の誤りかという告発された疑問を提起しながらそれは言及している。

21:51 2016/07/22金

The White House has not said whether Mr. Obama will visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, a more difficult choice given its overwhelming portrayal of Japan as victim, with little reference to its role as a wartime aggressor. In the 1990s, the museum responded to criticism that it does not sufficiently acknowledge Japan’s own atrocities by adding material describing Hiroshima’s role as a wartime manufacturing site. But because of a renovation, much of that content is not currently on display.
Should he meet with survivors?
This may be one of the trickiest issues because critics in the United States are casting the visit as another stop on an “apology tour.” Even if Mr. Obama does not apologize, it could be difficult to meet any survivor without expressing some regret and sympathy for what they have suffered. About 84,000 survivors of the atomic bomb still live in Hiroshima Prefecture, and an additional 48,000 in Nagasaki. According to a poll Wednesday by the Japanese public broadcaster NHK, close to 60 percent of them said they wanted the president to meet with them and hear their stories.
Asked in an interview on Sunday if he would oblige, Mr. Obama demurred, saying he had not completed his schedule. On Thursday, a survivors group said that three survivors had been invited to the wreath-laying ceremony. There was no word yet on whether they would meet the president.
Photo

 
President Obama and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan at the Ise shrine in Ise, Japan, on Thursday. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times 

Should the president apologize?
Mr. Obama has already said he would not issue an apology for the bombings, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has not pressed for one.
A majority of Americans say they believe the bombings were necessary to force Japan’s surrender and end the war. President Harry S. Truman, and many historians since, have argued that the bombings saved millions of lives by averting the need for a full-scale invasion. They also say that Japan, which had led a rampaging campaign throughout Asia, had an opportunity to surrender before the bombings, but chose not to. In that view, no apology is warranted.


Critics of the bombings are skeptical that they truly precipitated Japan’s surrender. The fact that cities, not military targets, were bombed, killing more than 200,000 people, has led some experts in both countries to conclude the bombings amounted to war crimes. In that view, the president should apologize on behalf of the United States.
So what will Obama say?
After laying a wreath at the peace memorial, Mr. Obama is expected to make brief remarks. “I think you can expect me to speak to the horrors of war in general, to speak to the need for a world without nuclear weapons and to speak to the U.S.-Japan alliance as an example of how we can move forward,” he told NHK.
He may also sign the guest book, as Secretary of State John Kerry did during a visit in April. “It is a stark, harsh, compelling reminder,” Mr. Kerry wrote, “not only of our obligation to end the threat of nuclear weapons, but to rededicate all our effort to avoid war itself.”
Should he criticize Japan for its role in the war?
Since the president’s speech will not include an apology, he will have to strike a delicate balance in referring to Japan’s aggression during the war. Some have wondered if he will mention the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, along with other Japanese war atrocities like the Nanjing Massacre in China or the Bataan Death March.
What are the potential minefields elsewhere in Asia?
The wounds of World War II are still intensely felt in other parts of Asia that fell victim to Japan’s imperial war machine. In China, People’s Daily, the official Communist Party newspaper, accused Japan of being Mr. Obama’s “right-hand man” in East Asia, while his visit to Hiroshima is seen as a false effort to portray Japan as a victim rather than a chief aggressor during the war.
The official response in South Korea has been more deferential. The government has neither welcomed nor criticized the trip. But some South Korean news media, as well as South Korean survivors of the bombings, have urged Mr. Obama to pay tribute to a separate monument at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, built by Koreans in memory of the Korean victims.
What is the reaction in Japan?
The Japanese people, along with the mainstream news media, have been overwhelmingly supportive of Mr. Obama’s decision to visit Hiroshima. In a poll this week by the Asahi Shimbun, a liberal newspaper, 89 percent said they supported the trip. However, on Thursday, a group of about 50 protesters marched past the peace monument in Hiroshima carrying signs that read, “No Abe! No Obama! No Nukes, Base & War!”