Will Obama Apologize For Atomic Blast?

US President Barack Hussein Obama is scheduled to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Japan some time in May and pundits of various stripes are concerned about what kind of an impression he might give to his hosts. They're worried that he could express regret that the US Army Air Corps was ordered by Democratic president Harry S. Truman to drop an atomic weapon on two Japanese cities inhabited by civilians, if anyone in a global conflict can be considered a civilian. This opinion piece in today's Wall Street Journal gives the stereotypical justification for vaporizing Japanese teen-age girls walking to school.  http://www.wsj.com/articles/obama-truman-and-hiroshima-1463007656

Perhaps detonating a weapon of indiscriminate mass murder against civilians really wasn't much of a novelty for a country that had no problem exterminating the original natives of the country and interning US citizens that happened to be of the wrong race. Be that as it may, several of the arguments put forth by Father Wilson D. Miscamble of the University of Notre Dame are open to debate.

One of the most common justifications for Fat Boy and Little Man (the names given to the two weapons) was that their use made unconditional surrender likely and an invasion of the country unnecessary, saving the lives of many thousands on both sides. Well, who says an invasion was needed at all? With no remaining military capability, the Empire of the Sun was no threat to anyone. MacArthur could have sent the battleship Missouri into Tokyo Bay and told the Japs over a giant loudspeaker to stay home and leave the rest of us alone. Invading Japan would have been an incredibly expensive exercise in revenge against a civilian population that didn't fly Zeros or attack Pearl Harbor.

You'll notice that despite some serious situations in the world since those fateful days in 1945, neither the US, nor anyone else, has dropped a nuclear weapon. If it was such a good idea then, why wasn't it an option on several occasions in Korea, Iran, Viet Nam, and other places?

Of course, the sickest aspect of the entire affair is that nation/states that have disagreements between their leadership and governments have the ability to hold the general populations of their enemies and even their own countries hostage to mass murder.