[MB.]

Thank you for posting this, Karthikaqpt, I was looking for video of this event.

Here is the full video

[RightUnite]

This news is old now but at the time I was very angry with Obama over this visit. Obama is basically spitting on the American dead. Disgusting. I'm so glad this vile idiot dictator is leaving the oval office, and if he thinks he can scupper Trump's presidency by war mongering and causing mayhem, he has another thing coming!

[MistyTiger]

From the standpoint of my ancestors, this is a way for the Japanese to further ingratiate themselves with the USA and get them to allow Japan to invade China and Taiwan with a better tactical team. China and Japan are still bitter enemies and it is unlikely that Japan will apologize any time for all the atrocities it committed in the past. Japan is still jealous.

[Far-Right Sage]

This news is old now but at the time I was very angry with Obama over this visit. Obama is basically spitting on the American dead. Disgusting. I'm so glad this vile idiot dictator is leaving the oval office, and if he thinks he can scupper Trump's presidency by war mongering and causing mayhem, he has another thing coming!

I've been a fervent and long-time critic of the Obama administration on almost every facet of its domestic and foreign policy pursuits from the outset, but how on Earth can this be spun as "spitting on the American dead"?

[MistyTiger]

I've been a fervent and long-time critic of the Obama administration on almost every facet of its domestic and foreign policy pursuits from the outset, but how on Earth can this be spun as "spitting on the American dead"?

Not enough spit to go around! LOL.

It is something that Abe made an official state visit. It could be a gesture to apologize, maybe. Though I do not think that the Japanese government wants to actually apologize for an act of war. Anything can happen during a war, right? No one is using their best table manners during combat.

Hey FRS, back for awhile?

[Zionist Nationalist]

America knew about an incoming attack on pearl harbor but chose to do nothing

[Far-Right Sage]

Not enough spit to go around! LOL.

It is something that Abe made an official state visit. It could be a gesture to apologize, maybe. Though I do not think that the Japanese government wants to actually apologize for an act of war. Anything can happen during a war, right? No one is using their best table manners during combat.

Hey FRS, back for awhile?

I remember coming across an article early in December or so about Abe distinctly saying Japan wouldn't issue a formal apology, but then, neither did Obama and his team on behalf of the United States during the state visit to Hiroshima. And really, neither should - It's a phony gesture of political posturing. The U.S. certainly isn't sorry about the atomic bombings of Japanese cities. And Japan may be sorry it didn't heed Yamamoto's more cautious reading of the battle for the Pacific and avoided airstrikes on Pearl Harbor, but only in the sense that it lost. The idea that these pups Shinzo Abe and Barack Obama, who were not even born let alone in politics or any position of political or military influence at the time, should apologize on behalf of the preceding generations is in many ways the greatest disrespect toward those that came before them, the majority whom would desire no apology on their behalf. In Japan of all places where primacy is given to ancestral reverence and the cult of ancestral guidance, I can see why they'd be particularly adverse to this. To me it's all and always has been unseemly, unnecessary and uncomfortably disingenuous.

And as for my stay, it's difficult to say - I do read and peruse far more often than I post comments to the forum this past year or so, but I have been using the computer far less in general and funny though it may sound, our cozy little community has always been one of the main activities I spent my time on whilst online. I'm a romantic at heart though who does appreciate sentiment for its own sake and couldn't allow the 10th anniversary of my membership (yesterday, New Year's Eve), to slip by without registering a post.

[Potemkin]

Good to hear from you again, FRS. Happy New Year!

[One Degree]

Happy Anniversary.

[MistyTiger]

And as for my stay, it's difficult to say - I do read and peruse far more often than I post comments to the forum this past year or so, but I have been using the computer far less in general and funny though it may sound, our cozy little community has always been one of the main activities I spent my time on whilst online. I'm a romantic at heart though who does appreciate sentiment for its own sake and couldn't allow the 10th anniversary of my membership (yesterday, New Year's Eve), to slip by without registering a post.

Awww, that is sweet! Happy 10th! Be well.

[ness31]

@mistytiger

What, may I ask, is Japan jealous of?

Thanks in advance

[Tewodros III]

I've been a fervent and long-time critic of the Obama administration on almost every facet of its domestic and foreign policy pursuits from the outset, but how on Earth can this be spun as "spitting on the American dead"?

You alive, what think of trump so far?

[RightUnite]

I've been a fervent and long-time critic of the Obama administration on almost every facet of its domestic and foreign policy pursuits from the outset, but how on Earth can this be spun as "spitting on the American dead"?

Because his actions are symbolic. America did nothing wrong in those days. It was a necessary thing to preserve further loss of American soldier life, but the Left just won't accept that the Japanese would have slaughtered every American there. The Japanese have a fierce warrior code. They would have butchered every American there. The bombing was necessary. Obama's reception at PH was a denigration of the lives of those Americans who lost their lives.

[ThirdTerm]

Obama visited Hiroshima earlier and Abe was urged to return the favour by visiting Pearl Harbor. Both leaders stopped short of apologising for what happened 70 years ago and they only offered condolences to the victims. I think it's part of Obama's legacy-making efforts before leaving the White House. Something drastic would happen when President Trump takes office, which would change the current US-Japan relationship forever. Moreover, the concept of war guilt is similar to white guilt. What had happened over 70 years ago is not our generation's fault and we should not feel gulity about Hiroshima or Pearl Harbor.

[Far-Right Sage]

A happy new year to you as well - that goes for Potemkin and all of you folks. May it be filled with good health and fortune and renewed strength to realize even your silliest errant fleeting wishes as well as your deepest convictions. May we all go forward. The best gift I could have asked for on here, what with my visiting more infrequently and seeing all the changes to the forum display, is to see some old familiar faces to know you are all still around. I'm talking about those of us who go back to the mid 2000's.

You alive, what think of trump so far?

It won't surprise many that after having distinctly stated in 2012 that I would not participate and it was the first U.S. presidential election in my own life in which I did not do so, that I did indeed vote this time and cast a vote for Trump. He isn't even in office yet, but I can say that aside from all the non-issues given tv air time and the wrangling over cabinet appointments that before all this my hopes were still very modest. I had hoped and still hope that the mere act of his election and his presence will upset the apple-cart even 5% where it counts - on trade, foreign policy, and immigration. The surge of even a superficial flavor of populism did throw a spanner into the works of the business-as-usual attitude and the mores, values and policy preferences of the entrenched "Washington consensus" and its orthodoxy to the extent that Americans are at least having discussions about real substantive change for the first time in a long time rather than existing in an echo chamber of their own creation and a feedback loop of circular logic.

Americans of a new generation now know it's possible to influence a participatory system largely in place to provide an outlet for frustrations without endangering the status quo; to influence either from the right or left, and that idea is dangerous currency to some. I supported Trump's candidacy, as others on the far-right did, as well as surprisingly even some on the left and all over the spectrum, as the political equivalent of a stick of dynamite hurled against fossilized sheet rock which would be immovable otherwise.

This was vastly superior to the alternative - had the predicted outcome and the preferred outcome by those who have a vested interest in this country and the world remaining exactly in the direction it currently is come to pass, many a rich discussion in the aftermath would not have taken place. That in and of itself is worth something.

So I have a wish list of sorts, but I'm a bit giddy as it's been a while since I compiled one of these so I'll keep it short:

1) Deport several million of the 11-14 million illegal Mexican nationals on U.S. soil
2) Actually enforce existing U.S. federal immigration law and commit to a 180 degree policy reversal on pursuing rather than rewarding states like Arizona in the past who implemented their own proactive statutes largely mirroring federal policy
3) Severely penalize large corporations for either hiring of illegal migrant labor or outsourcing to South Asia, South America and elsewhere abroad. Stack a loyalist assortment of characters in the FBI and AG's office directly reporting to the office of the presidency to threaten the non-compliant with asset seizure and wholesale liquidation
4) Drive a wooden stake through the TPP and submit all formerly signed trade treaties designed to facilitate free flow of goods and capital at the expense of national sovereignty and workers' livelihoods, societal position and autonomy up for stringent review starting with NAFTA on down to the bilateral FTAs
5) Immediately cease all diplomatic, financial, military and intelligence support in training and acquisition of arms to the Islamist insurgency in the Syrian war and restore full ties with Syria and complete normalization
6) Normalize ties with Russia and terminate the sanctions regime against all private and public entities in that country

Of course there are far more I could add but those are just a combo of some of the most vital and those which I think have an actual chance at coming to fruition.

Because his actions are symbolic. America did nothing wrong in those days. It was a necessary thing to preserve further loss of American soldier life, but the Left just won't accept that the Japanese would have slaughtered every American there. The Japanese have a fierce warrior code. They would have butchered every American there. The bombing was necessary. Obama's reception at PH was a denigration of the lives of those Americans who lost their lives.

This is a criticism you could more appropriately direct toward Obama's visit to Hiroshima though; not Pearl Harbor. If anything it is Abe's Pearl Harbor visit which would have aroused the anger of some Japanese nationalists.

[annatar1914]

Well, Far-Right Sage my friend, I'm back, and it's good to see that you're still here! And how right you are in both senses!