Obama’s Visit to Hiroshima Highlights Trump’s Scary Nuclear Gaffes
As the president mends fences with old enemies, from Cuba to Japan, Trump seems happy to ‘rattle’ the international community.
Obama at Hiroshima
Chemi Shalev – Haaretz
Barack Obama’s visit to the Memorial Peace Park in Hiroshima captured the main headlines of most serious newspapers on Saturday, but the news networks’ coverage kept to a bare minimum. Ratings-wise, it was hard for the history that Obama was making in Japan to compete with the hysterics that Trump was sparking with his faux-agreement to a television debate with Bernie Sanders. Between the sublime and the ridiculous, the latter won hands down.
It’s hard to conjure a starker contrast. Obama is intent on bringing down old walls while Trump is erecting new ones in their stead. Obama clears a path through complex situations with careful rhetoric while Trump tramples his way to the top with all the sensitivity of a bull in a china shop.
Obama is trying to accommodate America to a new multi-polar world while Trump disperses empty promises to return it to its former glory. The gap between Obama’s lofty pledges and his achievements on the ground may garner widespread criticism, but the possibility that Trump’s words reflect his view of reality is a cause for genuine alarm. America might not miss Obama yet, but the world is already “rattled” by his impending departure and his potential replacement.
Obama’s navigation of that delicate task that faced him in Japan was nothing less than masterful. He made it clear in advance that he would not apologize for Harry Truman’s decision to drop two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 but he captivated the Japanese nonetheless with heartfelt empathy for their pain and suffering. Press reports indicate that the White House was wary of direct contacts with survivors of the inferno, but the picture of Obama’s embrace with 79-year-old Shigeaki Mori, who was eight when his world was incinerated, moved the entire world.
Well, maybe not the entire world. Trump, for example, pooh-poohed the gesture by saying, “As long as this pathetic president doesn’t apologize, it’s fine. Who cares?” But even this apathy was too moderate for some of Trump’s more ardent supporters. Groupie Sarah Palin told a Trump rally in San Diego that Obama’s “apology lap” was “dissing our vets,” while Trump as President would deliver “a boot in the ass” to anyone who harms America. Popular columnist and practically-out-of-closet anti-Semite Ann Coulter promised that next Memorial Day Americans wouldn’t have a President who “grovels before Axis countries.” She said that a President “born in Hawaii” — in quotations marks, in line with Trump’s assertion that Obama’s birth certificate was forged — would do better to visit Pearl Harbour than Hiroshima. And that anyone who conducts a “sneak attack” against the U.S. deserves nuclear retaliation.
In his Hiroshima speech, Obama called for a “moral revolution” that would constrain humanity’s power to destroy itself and the tendency of nations, even those rich and powerful, to launch destructive wars. Echoing two slogans that the White House used in the battle over the Iran nuclear deal, Obama noted that countries must learn to use diplomacy to solve conflicts instead of military confrontation, and that nuclear weapons should not spread to countries that currently don’t possess them. “We can chart a course to the destruction of existing stockpiles,” he said, though a report issued concurrently by the Pentagon highlighted Obama’s difficulties in translating his lofty intentions into actions on the ground. His predecessors, it seems, were better than him in actually reducing the number American nuclear warheads.
Obama’s visit resurfaced the decades-old debate about the justification for the decision to drop the bombs known as “Little Boy” on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and “Fat Man” on Nagasaki on August 9. The claim that using the bombs was the only way to get Japan to surrender and to save the lives of up to a million American soldiers who would have been needed to conquer it was met by the counterclaim that using the bombs crossed red lines, was inhuman under all circumstances and brought humanity closer to self-destruction. The discussion inadvertently highlighted what is perhaps the greatest concern voiced by Trump’s critics, especially those on the conservative right: that he is unfit to control the codes that would unleash America’s nuclear arsenal.
The nuclear issue has tripped up Trump throughout the campaign. In a GOP debate in December he ad-libbed his way through a question about America’s nuclear triad — which marks the three main systems of delivering nuclear weapons, by air, by sea and by intercontinental ballistic missiles — by saying that “the power and destruction” of the weapons is the leg that appeals to him most. Then Trump shocked observers who care about these things by threatening to use nuclear weapons against ISIS and by refusing to rule out their use in Europe. In March he suggested that Japan might need to arm itself with nuclear weapons to counter the threat posed by North Korea, but when asked about it this week, against the backdrop of Obama’s visit, Trump simply denied ever having made such a proposal. Case closed.
One thing that Obama and Trump do have in common these days is growing self-confidence and a consequent willingness to break rules and defy conventions. With Trump it means refusing to play “presidential” and continuing to use personal insults as his weapon of choice — Mitt Romney walking like a penguin is the latest; floating proposals completely divorced from reality, such as his pledge to cure America’s economic ills by increasing production of domestic oil, even though that the ensuing glut would cause prices to plummet even lower than they are today; and alienating all countries and demographic groups in the U.S.A. other than his hard core, mainly white nucleus of supporters. This is the formula that won the GOP nomination for him and could take him to the White House as well.
Obama, for his part, is using his last year in office to cement his legacy and to carry out some of the missions that he had postponed, especially on the international stage. His visit to Hiroshima closes an old wound with America’s foremost Asian ally just as his ground-breaking tour of Hanoi a few days earlier closed a circle with its once deadliest enemy half a century ago. Obama’s historic visit to Cuba in March ended decades of estrangement with a hostile southern neighbour, just as his push to reach a deal with Iran, derided by many in the Middle East and Israel, reversed Iran’s nuclear drive and pre-empted another potential war in which the United States could be embroiled.
Obama calm determination has translated into the highest approval ratings he’s had since returning to office in 2012. He has regained the trust of the slim majority of Americans who voted him into office. Israel and its supporters might be wary that Obama will turn his attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but this is nothing compared to the dread felt by many Americans at the thought that Obama would be replaced by a brash real estate tycoon and reality star with no experience, no knowledge and no inhibitions. Obama himself seems increasingly concerned by this scenario and perhaps by the fact that Trump isn’t facing a consummate campaigner like him but a charisma-challenged Democrat like Hillary Clinton. One can assume that as the elections draw nearer, Obama will do whatever he can to avert the possibility that he will have to try and explain America’s nuclear policy to a President Trump in January 2017.
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Here is a video of President Obama in Hanoi –
Australian Opposition Leader says some Donald Trump views “barking mad”
by Associated Press
Australia’s opposition leader on Friday described some of the presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s views as “barking mad,” breaking a longstanding Australian convention of avoiding taking sides in USA political contests.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull criticised opposition leader Bill Shorten for potentially offending Americans through his comments during a radio interview.
Australia is in the early weeks of campaigning before the July 2 election and how its leader would deal with a possible president Trump has emerged as an issue.
The United States is Australia’s most important strategic ally and successive Australian governments undertake to work with whatever administration Americans choose.
Mr Shorten, who leads the centre-left Labour Party, told a Darwin radio station that a Trump administration was among “the sort of scenarios you hope don’t emerge.”
“I think Donald Trump’s views are just barking mad on some issues,” Mr Shorten said.
“America’s a great friend of Australia; whoever they dish up we’ll work with, but: WOW, Trump’s sort of – It’s sort of the ultimate victory of celebrity politics,” he added.
Mr Shorten described the construction mogul’s popularity as the “ultimate protest vote,” and a warning that Australia should pursue policies of fairness and equality.
Earlier this month Mr Shorten said that if he were an American he would vote for Hillary Clinton, as Mr Trump “would be very difficult to deal with.”
Mr Shorten later defended his strident attack on Mr Trump at a news conference, but declined to repeat his “barking mad” comment in front of television cameras.
“I think he’s got very erratic views. I think that the views he has are not views that sit comfortably with the mainstream of Australian opinion,” Mr Shorten said.
Mr Turnbull, who leads a conservative coalition, later declined to give his own views on the presumptive Republican candidate.
“You can imagine how Australians would feel if an American president were to describe one of our prime ministerial aspirants as ‘barking mad.’ You can imagine the resentment and ill will that would create in Australia,” P.M. Turnbull told reporters.
“It is absolutely critical that our … prime minister, whether it is me or Mr Shorten, is able to deal with the new American president … without the relationship being
clouded or affected by comments of the kind Mr Shorten has made,” he added.
Mr Turnbull in January made his only trip to the United States as prime minister and spoke to a single Republican seeking the presidential nomination, taking a phone call from Marco Rubio. Mr Turnbull also took a call from Democratic contender Hillary Clinton, whom the former merchant banker has known since 1992.
Leaders of major Australian parties rarely weigh into American domestic politics. But in 2007, then conservative prime minister John Howard created a furore by
saying al-Qaeda would be praying for a victory by then Democrats presidential hopeful Barack Obama because the Illinois senator promised to withdraw troops from Iraq.
At what point am I allowed to celebrate Hillary Clinton making history?
By oldmancoyote22 – Daily Kos
I get that we aren’t allowed to spike the football, for fear of offending voters whose candidate is losing. I get that we aren’t allowed to highlight the incredible obstacles Hillary has faced to get where she is today, for fear of being told we are shills, paid trolls, neoliberal, apologists, or the establishment.
But at what point can we celebrate what Hillary is on the cusp of? When do we acknowledge the shattered glass at our feet which she’s left scattered in her wake?
From the moment Hillary hit the political scene in Arkansas, from the second she stepped foot on the campaign trail for her husband back in the 1992 election cycle, she was treated as an existential threat to Republican politics.
Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent for the past 25 years to make you hate her [incidentally, does anyone else think this may provide some explanation for the fact that her weakest support comes from the people who have only been alive that long?].
She’s been investigated, slandered, exonerated, ridiculed, and honoured time and time again. But more than that — she’s worked harder and longer and more effectively than any woman in American political history.
Yet, if she were to take a bow, if we were to pump our fists at this seminal moment in history, we’d be accused of all manner of incivility.
So when would it be okay to acknowledge this profound and deeply appreciated accomplishment to millions of Americans who are voting for her to succeed where no woman has succeeded before?
A couple of things, Old Man – Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched
and PATIENCE – Moon a run – ’til day a catch ‘um!! -clyde