#nuclearbomb #atomicbomb #hiroshima #nagasaki Diplomats from the United States, Britain and France have for the first time attended a Japanese event to mark the dropping of an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima.
A temple bell rang out to begin a one-minute silence at 8.15am, the time a US bomber aircraft dropped the device on Hiroshima, killing tens of thousands of people.
The US decision to send its ambassador, John Roos, to the ceremony was seen as potentially paving the way for Barack Obama, the US president, to visit Hiroshima, which would be unprecedented for a sitting US leader.
Al Jazeera's Steve Chao, reporting from Hiroshima, said many Japanese felt the US presence at the ceremony was an affirmation of Obama's seriousness in working towards a nuclear-free world, but warned that it would be an immense task to achieve.
"People here are under no illusion of the challenges ahead, the fact that it might be difficult for the US congress to approve the stepdown in terms of the nuclear stockpile and other challenges posed by nations like North Korea, and also the fact that there remains 25,000 nuclear warheads in the hands of various nations around the world.
Katsuko Nishibe, a 61-year-old peace activist, said she welcomed the US decision to send Roos, but added that it should not lead to an acceptance that it was the right thing to do. "I don't think it was necessary," she said. "We have a very different interpretation of history. "But we can disagree about history and still agree that peace is what is important. That is the real lesson of Hiroshima."
Source: Al Jazeera
The US Embassy Tokyo said "Ambassador Roos attended the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony today to express respect for all the victims of World War II.".
Roos’s statement should have specifically acknowledged the Pearl Harbor victims that started the Pacific War.
Roos’s statement should have acknowledged the millions of Chinese victims.
Roos's statement should have acknowledged the victims of the Bataan death march the Japanese inflicted on their pow's.
Truman’s advisors told him that stopping the Japanese initiated war by invading Japan would have cost a million US military lives and 2 million Japanese military and civilian lives. Would this have been preferable to lives lost at Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
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