Do you like Japanese leader Shinzo Abe’s plan to visit Pearl Harbor at month’s end with President Barack Obama?
-
A. Yes, important for U.S.-Japan ties (1078 Votes)
-
C. Not big deal; neutral (318 Votes)
-
B. No, oppose visit (125 Votes)
This is not a scientific poll — results reflect only the opinions of those voting.
23 responses to “Do you like Japanese leader Shinzo Abe’s plan to visit Pearl Harbor at month’s end with President Barack Obama?”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Why not? They graciously welcomed Obama to the Hiroshima Peace Park!
IRT Cojef, and, there are no requirement for any apologies from both sides. The United States and Japan.
IRT kuroiwaj, no one said this is an apology. Why are you making this up, posting shibai?
IRT LocalGuy, did you read the article on the Japan’s PM visit to Pearl Harbor?
There’s BIGGER problems in the World! WW2 is over, Japan surrendered. Apologize or not doesn’t matter as the World still spins with PROBLEMS! Get off of it Liberals! The US is in deep poopoo’s and that’s not even talking about the Mideast, Russia and China aggression with land grab or creating man-made island for military use. You all worry bout feelings while the rest of the anti-America World strengthens! “smh”
Japan is an allie, Japan is not the anti-American aggressors for Gawd’s sake! Where’s your Prioritis! you Libertards! America 1st! Make America Great Again!
You gotta get off the PC train, folks! and pay attention to the REAL problems before us that hurts more than a word or apology from an Ally. What are you? a Man or a Girlie Man? as Arnold would put it. lol
They come up with the stoopidest questions everyday!
Yep, it’s a no-brainer something like this is important especially since this is the 75th anniversary of the attack.
I consider The Big Question a highlight of the paper. They touch on issues at the heart of our community. For example, feelings still run deep against the Japanese attack on Pearl. Many Americans are still waiting for a formal apology from the Japanese government. I’m guessing that the SA editors are assuming that readers are interested in knowing if a visit rather than an apology is acceptable to most in Hawaii and the US. Based on the few comments thus far, it seems most welcome this gesture from Abe, which has been prompted by Obama’s initiative to visit Hiroshima earlier. I guess the point is that most on both ends of the Pacific will never forget but are willing to look ahead to a stronger friendship.
Abe is not planning to apologize, and that is a shame. Seventy-five years after starting the war, the Japanese are still trying (and largely succeeding) to whitewash the fact that they started the war and committed atrocities on nearly the same scale as the Germans. They try to use Hiroshima to portray themselves as victims when they started the whole Pacific War. Enough already!
Utterly shibai post. Let it go.
Have you ever been to Japan or looked at a Japanese history textbook? Well, I have, and they practice the grossest distortion imaginable. They have enshrined convicted war criminals at the biggest temple in Tokyo. If one visits Germany, everything the Nazis did is carefully and accurately on view, both in terms of locations and history books. When MacArthur decided not to hang Hirohito, the tone was set for the whitewash, and it still flavors relations between Japan, Korea, and China. Too important to just “let it go.” Localguy is the one full of shibai and ignorance.
“History is written by the victors.” You’ve heard it, I’ve heard it – everyone has heard it. But you don’t have to look far afield to see examples. Cast your gaze closer to home and you’ll see that the “Heroes of the Alamo” fought and died so that, among other things, slavery might live. Or, you could consider the ears cut off from the heads of “rebel” Filipinos by U.S. Army state volunteer infantry units during the Philippine Insurrection so that accurate scores could be kept. I won’t argue a moral equivalence exists between Pearl Harbor and such footnotes to history, but I will put it to you that Americans are not immune to whitewashing our history of uncomfortable truths. Sure, the war with Mexico and our country’s dalliance in the Philippines may not have crossed the line into outright genocide (so our schoolbooks say) but you’d have a hard time convincing the losers of that.
As one Wehrmacht soldat famously said after his war was done: “If you don’t want to stomach atrocities, then don’t start a war.”
Abe s here to pay respect to the fallen Japanese heroes in the attack, not the Americans or private citizens. Obama plans to do the same. nobody is here to honor the American or private citizen victims.
The reality is that it is about now and the future. The past was not a good thing … what did we learn? … lets move forward with a positive attitude.
His visit is timed perfectly to deflect attention away from other matters the LDP is trying to squeeze by the population of Japan. This is political theater.
Perhaps you are right? Politicians as a whole are quick on their feet to deflect unpleasantness by deflection. This visit may be in regards to the Pact that Abe has been recently pushing with Obama’ s blessing which Trump as the president-elect has rejected. Abe will again make his annual visit to the Yasukuni-jinja where the Japanese war dead are enshrined much to the consternation of China and US.
70 years too late Abe-san. Tell Emperor Akihito to board the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial, and get down on his hands and knees to express his apologies in person pronto! (P.S. Bring many young Japanese comfort women with the Emperor to comfort the souls of the over 1,000 dead U.S. sailors and other servicemen who died at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
I am sure most Americans will wonder what will Japanese PM Abe will say, short of an apology on December 07, 2016? It was a surprise unprovoked attack by Japan that took the lives of millions. When he ride on that Navy boat to view the USS Arizona where over 4,000 sailors are buried on this battle ship as it went down from the Japanese Zeros bombers, I am wondering what his words going to be?
We have a liberal muslim President Barack Hussein Obama who has no trouble apologizing to other nations when he meets Abe. Like a good liberal Democrat, I wouldn’t be surprise Obama will apologize for this country using the Atomic bomb on his country to end World War II.
Believe the number is 2,000, not 4,000.
@blackmurano: written like a true Chinese wu mao
Some of the posters here sound like we’re still fighting the war. Let the millions of dead on both sides rest in peace, and work to never let it happen again.