{"id":246350,"date":"2016-05-27T21:54:47","date_gmt":"2016-05-27T21:54:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/obamas-hiroshima-speech-was-lovely-frustrating-and-infuriating\/"},"modified":"2016-05-27T21:54:47","modified_gmt":"2016-05-27T21:54:47","slug":"obamas-hiroshima-speech-was-lovely-frustrating-and-infuriating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/obamas-hiroshima-speech-was-lovely-frustrating-and-infuriating\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama\u2019s Hiroshima Speech Was Lovely, Frustrating, and Infuriating"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"11796415_934981119876529_3032773539452310147_n\"President Obama\u2019s #apology tour keeps a-rollin\u2019 on, am I right? No, hang on.<\/p>\n

As unforgivable as Obama has been on foreign policy in myriad ways \u2014 and how much worse, perhaps, a Clinton or any Republican ever might be with the help of Obama\u2019s drone precedents \u2014 there is something about him which almost looks like better than it could be. At least in certain lights. That is to say, Obama kills people, but he also occasionally appears to notice that the US has made foreign policy mistakes. This is what the hawks and right-wingers dub the apology tour, even though \u201csorry\u201d never crosses the president\u2019s lips when he\u2019s discussing the heavy handed US response to 9\/11, or admitting America\u2019s role in the 1953 coup in Iran.<\/p>\n

Obama is the first sitting president to visit Hiroshima. The opening act for his visit to the site of the first nuclear bomb ever dropped on human beings was Secretary of State John Kerry, who went last month. Kerry\u2019s delicate acknowledgement that the bombing was a tragedy<\/a> gave conservatives a case of indigestion. Obama\u2019s Friday speech<\/a> may make them lose their minds entirely.<\/span><\/p>\n

Obama was classy. He placed a wreath at the peace memorial \u2014 he visited the museum which contains images of the bombing victims. And his speech has a lot to like. There are lovely words within it. Words about peace, and about the dangers of nuclear weapons \u2014 or even other military weapons! Obama extensively hints that people in other countries may be as worthy of life as Americans, noting that the 60 million who died during World War II (which, obviously, also includes Americans) were \u201cMen, women, children, no different than us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obama said, \u201cWe come to mourn the dead, including over 100,000 Japanese men, women, and children, thousands of Koreans, and a dozen Americans held prisoner. Their souls speak to us.\u201d Even the American POWs get a shoutout, though they were a tiny minority. But that\u2019s not going to silence the screeching of the hawks.<\/p>\n

Apology tour! hissed<\/a> former US Ambassador to the UN and enormous hawk, John Bolton. Why doesn\u2019t Obama visit Pearl Harbor? snits Victor David Hanson<\/a> at National Review<\/em>.<\/p>\n

No. But what was it? Vague, and full of platitudes for one thing.<\/p>\n

Obama did what leaders do. Poetry made evading details easier \u2014 \u201cdeath fell from the sky\u201d instead of, the Enola Gay dropped a nuclear bomb. For a president, it felt brave. It was admitting that no matter what, World War II was a bloody catastrophe. People like Bolton and Hanson hate that. They appear to think that the US needs to constantly spike the ball of moral righteousness, and then do a dance on the site of each war it has ever fought.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what they mean when they ask why Obama doesn\u2019t visit Dresden or Tokyo to give speeches about war. They would love that \u2014 love him to go around the world confirming the greatness of America. To hawks, the US is the kind of big, strong man whose masculinity is somehow forever in doubt and must…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Obama\u2019s #apology tour keeps a-rollin\u2019 on, am I right? No, hang on. As unforgivable as Obama has been on foreign policy in myriad ways \u2014 and how much worse, perhaps, a Clinton or any Republican ever might be with the help of Obama\u2019s drone precedents \u2014 there is something about him which almost looks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-246350","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}