, Columnist
Why Obama Can't Apologize for Hiroshima
The president may regret the loss of life while staying silent on the morality of the bombings.
Peace Memorial Park, Hiroshima.
Photographer: Junko Kimura/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
Barack Obama will be the first U.S. president to visit Hiroshima, a prospect that has set off arguments about whether he should apologize for our use of nuclear bombs to end World War II. The White House says he will not. While the case that he should is strong, the case that he shouldn’t is stronger.
Most Americans, from 1945 to the present, have believed that President Harry Truman was justified in bombing Japan. Most supporters of that decision say the bombs saved lives by breaking Japan’s will to continue fighting. The alternative, they add, was a ground invasion that would have caused much more blood, Allied and Japanese, to be shed.