Next month President Barack Obama will be in Japan for the Group of Seven summit. It will be in Ise-Shima, half way between Tokyo and Hiroshima. There is already speculation that he will become the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima. It would be seen as a grand symbolic gesture that would also underscore his dream of a world without nuclear weapons.
The president should make the visit. It’s what some American president should already have done. America is the only country to have ever used a nuclear weapon. One killed 140,000 non-combatants in Hiroshima. We know the necessary-evil rationale to save the lives of U.S. troops.
That’s not the point the rest of the world, much of it still looking at the U.S. for hope and context, focuses on. However nuanced the president’s “never-again” words: they need to be said–especially in that part of the world.