Japan Should Apologize for Hiroshima

Japan will commemorate the 65th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing today, and for the first time, the US ambassador to Japan will be present. The son of the man who dropped the first atomic bomb called that gesture “an unsaid apology” from the Obama administration. But it’s not the US that needs to apologize, says Warren Kozak of the Wall Street Journal, who’s a little fed up with Japan’s fixation on the bomb.

“Focusing on the atomic bombs paints the Japanese as victims,” Kozak writes. “They were not.” Japanese armies invaded China, Korea, the Philippines, Indochina, Burma, and more, killing as many as 17 million Asians, all in the name of global conquest and “their bizarre racial theories.” Japan’s neighbors are, needless to say, tired of hearing about Japan’s role as a victim of the atomic bomb. By tacitly validating that image, “we undermine the ability of future generations to identify real evil.” (More Japan stories.)