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President Obama "Don't Go to Hiroshima Empty
Handed" Update after the visit.
By mickielynn on 2016-05-26 14:47:24
ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER
THAN WORDS!
#NONUKES
On Friday, May 27th President
Obama is scheduled to visit the city of Hiroshima [where the United States dropped one of the only two nuclear weapons
ever deployed in August of 1945.] He will be coming there after the G7 meetings in Japan and fresh from a trip to Vietnam
preceding the summit. Although Secretary of State, John Kerry visited Hiroshima earlier this spring President Obama will
be the first US President to visit the city while in office. Already there has been a big discussion about whether the President
should "apologize" for the dropping of the bomb but that is not really the issue here. Instead what most peace loving people
have asked Obama to do is to meet with the remaining living survivors of the bombing, the hibakusha (survivors of the
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) and hear their stories of just what happened there 71 years ago. [caption
id="attachment_8413" align="aligncenter" width="500"]
Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome)
(Japan) Taken ¢ on January 1, 2006 by Giovanni Boccardi. This was the only standing building left after the bombing and
used to be the Promotion of Industry building. It now anchors the peace memorial in the center of Hiroshima.[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_8419" align="aligncenter" width="480"]
} ° Hiroshima Peace Memorial, Around the
Cenotaph is a pool to keep the space vacant between the Cenotaph and the Dome., from Arch-Hiroshima.net[/caption] Such
a meeting would bring fully home to President Obama and to the media the high cost of keeping large numbers of nuclear
weapons and even defying the nuclear non-proliferation treaty by "modernizing them" and making the unthinkable use of
such weapons more possible. In addition the survivors are the most articulate spokespeople for the imperative that nuclear
weapons never be used again. By meeting with them, Mr. Obama will both honor their lifelong work to prevent such a
horror and learn more about what such actions really mean in terms of lives, following generations of the effects of
radiation and the scars left on the whole world. For a good historical overview here's a brief article from the Nukes of
Hazard blog: Hiroshima: A Nuclear Past and Future. This blog article also makes the second most frequent demand
about what President Obama could bring as a real gift to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and to the world. That's the
gift of declaring that we will not be undertaking the so called "modernization" of our nuclear arsenal at a cost of more than
$1 Trillion over the next 30 years. In particular they mention that there is no need for a new nuclear cruise missile that
would be costly, unneeded and potentially destabilizing while leading to a new nuclear arms race. Along those same lines,
Women 8 Action for New Directions (WAND) launched a petition calling for the visit with the hibakusha and these additional
steps: We encouraged the President to:
1. Reverse plans to spend $1 trillion upgrading the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
2. Reinforce the global moratorium on nuclear explosive testing and lay the foundation for the Comprehensive Nuclear
Test Ban Treaty's entry into force.
3. Call on all nations with nuclear weapons to commit to working toward nuclear disarmament.
According to the Council for a Livable World there is currently some legislation pending in the House Appropriations
Defense Subcommittee to demand a specific accounting from the Pentagon of the true cost of such modernization of nuclear
weapons and it's possible that the Senate will also sponsor such legislation. Right now in spite of estimates we don't actually
know the true cost. As the President visits Japan there is another serious military problem that he needs to address. That is
the devastation of the Island of Okinawa; where large US military bases [currently 33 U.S. military facilities and about
28,000 U.S. military personnel remain on the island.] have led to problems of military crimes including rape and murder
along with pollution and other damage to the island and its resources. This has been compounded by the plan by the very
warlike Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe to replace an existing military base with another one at the location of
Henoko. This is an area of fragile coral reefs and an endangered sea mammal. Right now there is huge popular resistance to
such a plan by almost all of the people of Okinawa. [caption id="attachment_8415" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
V-shaped
runway
Henoko
district
Naha ~ of Nago
Henoko expansion will threaten coral reefs and an endangered species of sea
mammals. While also leading to pollution and military crimes.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_8414" align="aligncenter"
J . .
its. Coral Reefs <
2 ay eet] 7
= ms 5 ae > :
+ aN" " » . ;
width="600"] - = March 2015
banner to protect Henoko, with public demonstration by activists.[/caption] Rapes of young Japanese girls and women have
been present along with the many troops and military bases. The recent rape and murder of a young woman by a base
employee this spring has just increased the resistance to bases on Okinawa. [caption id="attachment_8416"
align="aligncenter" width="300"]
ly Some 50 civic group members hold placards to protest the rape of a local woman by two US servicemen in Okinawa, in
the large American military presence. AFP PHOTO / Yoshikazu TSUNO
Some 50 civic group members hold placards to protest the rape of a local woman by two US servicemen in Okinawa, in
front of the prime minister's official residence in Tokyo on October 17, 2012. The US envoy to Japan vowed "complete and
unequivocal cooperation" on October 17 over the alleged rape of a local woman by two servicemen on an island fed up with
the large American military presence. AFP PHOTO / Yoshikazu TSUNO[/caption] To read more about the issue of new base
construction, here's an educational petition that details the history and the current situation. Code Pink asks that President
Obama take the time to meet with the Governor of Okinawa, who supports his citizens and calls for the withdrawal of US
military bases from his island and a fair distribution of such bases if they are to remain in Japan. [caption
id="attachment_8423" align="aligncenter" width="600"]
THANK YOU
GOV. ONAGA
. Governor Onaga of Okinawa
of Okinawa, Japan, opposed to new military bases on Okinawa.[/caption] So, President Obama: No apologies required, but
how about some commitment to truly reducing nuclear weapons and addressing the concerns of the people of Okinawa?
ial
anaes : : = : 3 Ditere’ s a brief update after the President's visit: According
to NPR, "Afier the speech, Obama 1 met briefly with s survivors of the Hiroshima attack who had been sitting in the audience
during his remarks." At their website you can also read an article and listen to the whole speech that President Obama gave
at the time. There was no mention of a meeting with Governor Onaga of Okinawa. [caption id="attachment_8432"
align="aligncenter" width="600"]
A Japanese and a U.S. flag fly
together near the Hiroshima Peace Memorial in Hiroshima on Friday. Photo by Jonannes Eisele, AFP/Getty[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_8433" align="aligncenter" width="600"]
Obama lays a wreath at the
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park Cenotaph on Friday. Obama is the first sitting U.S. leader to visit the site that ushered in
the age of nuclear conflict. photo by Jonannes Eisle, AFP/Getty[/caption]
