Alwaght- A large number of Japanese citizens gathered in Hiroshima, protesting United States President Barack Obama's visit to the city which suffered devastating atomic bomb attack along another Japanese city of Nagasaki during World War 2.
The protesters held banners that read: "Get rid of all nuclear weapons immediately", "Remove all US bases from Okinawa" and "We won't let you use military alliances to start your next war" and shouted: "You're not welcome here, Obama and Abe" and "Get out of Hiroshima". The protesters included labor union members, college students as well as survivors and relatives of victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.
Obama's visit to Hiroshima has stirred heated debate, with critics pointing to paradoxes in policies relying on nuclear deterrence while calling for an end to atomic arms. The city of Nagasaki was hit by a second nuclear bomb on Aug. 9, 1945, and Japan surrendered six days later.
The US justifies the bombings, contending that they were necessary to end the war and save lives, although many historians question that view and believe they were unjustified.
Obama’s visit to Hiroshima, a first by a sitting US president since World War 2, is a pointer that Washington seeks to reassert its hegemony in an Asia-Pacific region increasingly being seen as the sphere of influence of China. Obama’s arrival in Japan also highlights the deeply hypocritical and cynical attitudes of US policymakers, and President Obama himself, when it comes to the relevant issues. During his visit to Hiroshima on Friday, Obama did not formally apologize for the needless slaughter of more than 200,000 Japanese citizens (mostly civilians), nor did he address the lingering policy-related effects of the war such as the highly unpopular US military occupation of Okinawa.
When Barack Obama told his audience in Hiroshima that consistent effort would be needed to roll back from the brink of catastrophe and rid the world of nuclear weapons, the words evoked false promises made at the start of his presidency. In response to Obama’s Hiroshima speech, the Global Zero disarmament campaign issued a statement saying: “The president should immediately remove US nukes currently slated for elimination under the New Start Treaty off of hair-trigger alert (including a squadron of 50 ICBMs) as a gesture of US intention to seek a mutual stand-down of US and Russian nuclear forces. It would be a small but significant step – one that could help jump-start an international process to halt and reverse these risks before it’s too late.”
Newly declassified data, released by the Pentagon, awkwardly on the eve of the historic Hiroshima visit, showed that Obama had made fewer reductions to the US nuclear weapons stockpile than any president since the end of the cold war.
While Obama and his coterie of spin doctors shape his anti-nuclear legacy with talk of a nuclear deal with Iran – a country that has no nuclear weapons – the cynicism is impossible to ignore. Obama has in fact done everything to promote nuclear proliferation including the absolutely insane new US missile “defense” system in Eastern Europe which, almost by definition, forces Russia to upgrade and expand its own arsenal, including its nuclear stockpile as a countermeasure.
Obama will say a few words, then leave Japan. He’ll soon leave office with a still more dangerous world than when he entered: more nukes, more wars, more destruction.
Elsewhere, more than 4,000 Japanese rallied around the US Kadena Air Base in Japan's southernmost prefecture of Okinawa against the murder of a local woman by an ex-US army officer. Obama extended "sincerest condolences and deepest regrets" over the murder late Wednesday at a meeting with Abe ahead of the G7 summit.
This is while the US Marine charged with the rape of the Japanese woman on the island of Okinawa has pleaded guilty to the crime.
The serviceman, Seaman Apprentice Justin Castellanos, 24, admitted to finding the drunk and passed-out Fukuoka tourist in the hallway of Naha hotel, where he was also staying. He decided to take advantage of the situation by taking the fast-asleep woman to his room.
Okinawa hosts about 75 percent of all US troops in Japan, allowing it to both protect Japanese interests and keep a close eye on Southeast Asia.
The tiny sub-tropical island accounts for less than 1 percent of the county's total land mass, with local citizens becoming increasingly irate at their base-hosting burdens amid rising instances of crime, noise and pollution connected to the bases.
Anti-US sentiment has been spiking on the island, particularly since 1995, when an elementary schoolgirl was savagely gang-raped by three US troops.
