US not apologetic for ‘past harms’

The United States will not apologize to Japan over its 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki because such an apology would mean an acknowledgment of Washington’s past crimes, says an analyst.

Keith Preston made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Monday when asked about President Barack Obama who has said Washington is not sorry for what it did to Japan in 1945.

This Friday, Obama will become the first sitting US president to ever tour the site of the world’s first nuclear bombing that killed more than 140,000 people in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The attack was followed by another US atomic bombing on the port city of Nagasaki three days later, killing about 73,000 people.

On Sunday, when Japanese national broadcaster NHK asked Obama if an apology would be included in remarks he plans to make in Hiroshima, he said, “No, because I think that it’s important to recognize that in the midst of war, leaders make all kinds of decisions.”

Preston said Obama is not the only person who has refused to offer an apology for the catastrophic incident in Japan.

“There are many Americans today that continue to claim the use of those weapons was justified in order to force surrender on the part of Japan,” he said, noting “but Japan had expressed interest in a conditional surrender.”

He went on to say that “there is no evidence that it was necessary for the United States to use those weapons in order to achieve victory.”

Preston said that “the United States sees itself as having the capability of doing the wrong and that’s why the United States rarely has ever apologized …for its past harms the American empire has inflicted on societies all over the world.”

“I do think that one of the reasons the Americans will not issue an apology is simply because the Americans continue to try to exercise hegemony over the entire world and to acknowledge the past crimes of that height would essentially undermine the ….empire’s own legitimacy,” he concluded.

Obama’s visit to the city would have enormous symbolic importance, however, it would be controversial in the US if it were seen as an apology.