GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: (music) The first sitting president to visit Hiroshima, laying a wreath addressing survivors but no apology.
MATT LAUER: (music) …stopping short of an apology.
KEVIN CORKE: No, he did not apologize.
ALISYN CAMEROTA: The president not giving an apology…
AKIKO FUJITA: President Obama, though, not offering an apology…
CHRIS CUOMO: No apology, but reconciliation.
RUSH: The daily soap opera again. The script. Even before he left it became a focal point: “Will Obama apologize? Will he or will he not?” and here’s the Drive-By Media: “No, he didn’t! He didn’t apologize!” They must be worried that people think he did.
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RUSH: Now to Barack Hussein O and yet another apology tour, according to some. Here’s John Bolton. He was on Fox Business Network this morning with Maria Bartiromo. Well, actually, Maria Bartiromo wasn’t there. She’s got enough status that her Memorial Day weekend starts on Friday, so they had a subhost in there by the name of Sandra Smith. And she said to John Bolton, “What do you make of Obama’s visit and his words over there at Hiroshima?”
BOLTON: I don’t think we have anything to be ashamed about from reflecting on Harry Truman’s decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan. I think Obama’s speech was however consistent with his apology tour across his seven and a half years of office. I don’t think he’s ever actually said in any of these occasions, “I apologize.” It’s always more indirect, and it was indirect here today.
RUSH: I know what he means, but I think Obama has. I know Clinton has. I know Clinton’s actually used the words “we’re sorry” or “I apologize on behalf of my country,” but I know what he means. Obama goes over and acknowledges the defects of his own country. I give you an example. This one happened in Washington. Some ChiCom diplomat was in town, and they were meeting with somebody I guess at the State Department, ChiCom diplomat meeting with US diplomat, State Department.
And the US diplomat started in on the ChiComs and some human rights, civil rights violations in certain provinces, and the ChiCom guy launched, “Hey, you’ve got nothing to talk about. You can’t preach to us about this. You guys have your own history of violating human rights.” And the American diplomat agreed. “You know, I must say that the ChiCom representative does indeed have a point. We do have our own crosses to bear. And I apologize for speaking in the tone I spoke in.” So it’s that kind of stuff that Obama has done, and he’s done it a lot. And I agree totally, Bolton is exactly right here. Doesn’t directly say it so that he can deny saying it, but everybody knows what he’s doing. Everybody knows he’s got a chip on his shoulder.
So let’s listen to Obama himself. This is Hiroshima. Obama participated in a wreath-laying ceremony. You know, this is not news to me. When I lived out in Sacramento, I worked there from 1984 through 1987. And the mayor at the time was a woman named Anne Rudin. I think she actually did join a delegation and went over there and did apologize. If I’m wrong about that, one thing I do remember is that every anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a bunch of leftists would gather in Sacramento somewhere and have a huge day-long apology ceremony.
And they would constantly talk about how necessary it was and how guilty they personally felt and how they needed to personally apologize. They’d get people like Martin Sheen show up for the thing when he wasn’t stealing sewer grates from the homeless to sleep on himself. So here’s Obama in Hiroshima, see what you think.
OBAMA: Seventy-one years ago on a bright, cloudless morning, death fell from the sky, and the world was changed. A flash of light and a wall of fire destroyed a city and demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself.
RUSH: Okay. So what’s your take on that? The tone of that, you have to look at the tone of this. And clearly Obama — and I do mean “clearly” — clearly Obama does not in any way sound supportive, declarative, or in agreement with the decision. Let’s not forget something about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those bombs were dropped years after we entered the war, hundreds of thousands were dead. The Nazis were attacking freedom in Europe and the Japanese were attacking freedom in the Pacific. And we were in the middle of both assaults.
The decision to drop the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was as much to protect the lives of American soldiers as it was to defeat the enemy and kill two birds with one stone. But it’s not as though we started the war that way, like the Japanese did at Pearl Harbor or like Hitler did invading Poland, for all intents and purposes. We were not the bad guys. We were doing what the United States has always done: defending liberty all over the world, in addition to defending ourselves. And I will guarantee you Obama doesn’t see it that way. Obama thinks only one thing, that there should be tremendous guilt on our part because of this event. Here’s the next Obama bite.
OBAMA: How often does material advancement or social innovation blind us to this truth, how easily we learn to justify violence in the name of some higher cause.
RUSH: What higher cause?
OBAMA: Every great religion promises a pathway to love and peace and righteousness, and yet no religion has been spared from believers who have claimed their faith as a license to kill.
RUSH: What the hell is…? What’s that got to do with Hiroshima and Nagasaki? “Every religion… No religion has been spared from believers who have claimed their faith as a license to kill?” We didn’t get into World War II because we were running around thinking of ourselves having a license to kill! We were defending ourselves. For criminently’s sake, we were defending ourselves and everybody else that was under assault! We were defending the free world. License to kill? Well, Obama is letting everybody know what he actually thinks about this. Here’s the next and final Obama bite…
OBAMA: We stand here in the middle of this city and force ourselves to imagine the moment the bomb fell —
RUSH: No, we get pictures.
OBAMA: — to feel the dread of children confused by what they see. We listen to a silent cry. We remember all the innocents killed across the arc of that terrible war and the wars that came before and the wars that would follow. Their words cannot give voice to such suffering. But we have a shared responsibility to look directly into the eye of history and ask what we must do differently to curb such suffering again.
RUSH: See, Obama’s got this… He believes this saying out there, “the arc of history.” Imagine, if you will, this belief that either history repeats itself or doesn’t. If it’s cyclical, then you can plan for it. You can know how history’s gonna repeat. If it doesn’t and you think you cans top arc, if you think you can stop history, if you think you can stop the degradation, that’s what Obama believes here. When I hear him say “killed across the arc of that terrible war and … look directly into the eye of history and ask what we must do differently to curb such suffering,” what we must do differently?
What we must do differently? We were minding our own business on December 7th, 1941. We were not bothering anybody. What we must do differently? Anyway… (interruption) Yes, yes, yes, I know he might have been including the Japanese in all this. See, that’s another technique. Another technique of people like Obama. “You did it and we did it, and we were both wrong, and we should never do it again.” Problem solved! Compassion is declared!
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RUSH: Grab audio sound bite number three again. It’s only 23 seconds. This Obama. I want you to listen to this and ask yourself: Is there any other event about which what Obama says here would equally apply?
OBAMA: Seventy-one years ago — on a bright, cloudless morning — death fell from the sky, and the world was changed. A flash of light and a wall of fire destroyed a city and demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself.
RUSH: Yeah, so here he is… By the way, do you think it’s coincidental that Obama’s doing all this on our Memorial Day weekend? By the way, do you know what our Memorial Day weekend is? I mean, seriously? Do you know what the purpose of Memorial Day is? And I’m not talking about barbecues and hot dogs. Do you know what the real purpose is? How does it distinguish itself, say, from Veterans Day? We are honoring the war dead on Memorial Day. We’re honoring the war dead. We’re honoring those who have sacrificed everything they have.
That’s what Memorial Day is.
As opposed to Independence Day, as opposed to Flag Day, as opposed to Labor Day, we are honoring the dead. Anybody find it coincidental Obama’s over in Japan lamenting the bombs at Hiroshima, Nagasaki, on Memorial Day? Now, he’s coming back; I mean, he’s on his way back now. He’ll be there for the wreath-laying. I don’t think the timing is a coincidence, myself. I really don’t. Let’s go back. And your phone calls are coming up, folks. A lot of good ones, in fact, are hanging on. So we’ll get to ’em ASAP, but I want to go back to August 6, 1945, aboard the USS Augusta in the mid-Atlantic, President Harry Truman announcing the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.
TRUMAN: A short time ago, an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy. That bomb has more power than 20,000 tons of TNT. The Japanese began the war from the air in Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold. It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power, has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.
RUSH: Now… (chuckles) Harry Truman, in his day, shortly after he left office, was reviled. Not for this, he was just reviled. But in the sixties and seventies, Harry Truman had a rebirth. And there were popular songwriters writing, “Where did you, Harry Truman? We need a guy like you again,” and it was because of things like this. Imagine! Everything he said here could be said to be violation of political correctness to one degree or another.
He bragged about the power of the bomb, linked it to the universe. That’s God. Talked about the relationship of power of our bomb to the sun, blames the Japanese for everything that’s happening here, and proudly — proudly — claims that we’ve wiped ’em out! We’ve wiped out a city. See, back in World War II, it was civilian death counts that determined who won and lost wars. There wasn’t any surgical anything back then. Dresden, Berlin, London, you name it. It was precisely civilian populations that were hit, in addition to military targets. There is what led to the Japanese surrender. Here’s more from Harry Truman, again, same situation, August 6, 1944, on board the USS Augusta in the mid-Atlantic.
TRUMAN: We are now prepared to destroy more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories, and their communications. Let there be no mistake. We shall completely destroy Japan’s power to make war. It was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of July the 26 was issued at Potsdam. Their leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum. If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air the like of which has never been seen on this earth.
RUSH: Proudly promising more: “A rain of ruin from the air.” One final bite. We’ll squeeze it in.
TRUMAN: We have spent more than $2 billion on the greatest scientific gamble in history, and we have won. But the greatest marvel is not the size of the enterprise, its secrecy, or its cost, but the achievement of scientific brains in making it work. What has been done is the greatest achievement of organized science in history.
RUSH: He’s talking about the nuclear weapon there.
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RUSH: Hiroshima was a military target, by the way, not just civilian. The Japanese 5th Division, 2nd Army headquarters were there. But it was Nagasaki the second bomb that made them surrender, and it was only because the emperor overruled his military. They didn’t want to surrender even after the second bomb, the military of Japan.
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RUSH: Just to clarify some things, Hiroshima, I talked about civilian deaths, and there were countless, more than a hundred thousand. Nagasaki was even an a bigger bomb. Have you ever asked yourself, why is it only Hiroshima we go apologize for? Nagasaki came a short while later, and Nagasaki was a bigger bomb and there were just as many, if not more, deaths at Nagasaki. Why is it always Hiroshima? Just a little trivia question.
Hiroshima was a military target. It was the home of the Japanese 2nd Army, which commanded the defense of all of Southern Japan, which is where we were going to invade. It was also, Hiroshima was, a major communications center, major storage area, and the assembly point for troops disembarking. So it was a very high value military target as well.
And we were prepared to invade. And it was well known — well, it was forecast by American military people that such an invasion by air, by sea would result in an unspeakable number of American deaths, and it was not assured that we would emerge victorious from it. That’s when Truman said to hell with that. And he really did talk that way, to hell with that, and made the decision to drop the two bombs.
So, it was as much as anything to destroy military targets, storage areas, staging areas, command centers, command-and-control centers. It was also to protect the lives of American military personnel. We only had two bombs. After the first bomb at Hiroshima, the Japanese did not surrender. Nagasaki came a short time later, precisely because the Japanese did not surrender after Hiroshima. If Nagasaki had not convinced them, we would have had to invade, and, as it was, the Japanese military did not want to surrender. The emperor decided that it made no sense not to. And, of course, they surrendered, and when you surrender, to the victor go the spoils, and we dictated terms. Japanese military postwar, could it be or could it not be.
Today there is guilt in victory. There is an attempt at humility in victory. And even when we win we’re not supposed to act like it. And even when we win we’re supposed to regret that it had to happen. And even when we win, we’re supposed to promise never to do it again. Even when we win, we are to feel like we have been the ones who have done wrong. That’s the difference, among many others, in then and now. In fact, I would go so far as to say that, to many in this country, the American left per se, the whole concept of a victorious America is the problem.
The whole idea of America winning, particularly in a military conflict or economic or what have you, is bad, ’cause we’ve won more than our share. It’s not fair. The other side hasn’t had a chance. Nobody could have competed. Just wasn’t fair. Wasn’t fair. We deserve to lose. We deserve to get beat over and over again to make up for all of the victory that we had way back when.
Could I give you an illustration of the modern incarnation of this? Take Gulf War I. What was that a two-day, three day victory? Five day victory, whatever. Less than a week. This was when the Republican Guard, the elite troops of Saddam Hussein were on the march back to Baghdad from Kuwait, and what did General Powell say? Told Bush, “Don’t do it. Do not bomb them. That’s not in the resolution. The resolution simply says that you’ll get Iran out of Kuwait. It doesn’t authorize you to start killing people. Don’t do it.”
So we didn’t. Saddam lived to fight another day. But in addition to that, remember General Schwarzkopf. I doubt that very many people remember this. And this is not meant as a cut, not meant as a slam at General Schwarzkopf. I’m just illustration what I just said to you. General Schwarzkopf and his aides were preparing to Humvee over to the surrender ceremony where agents of Saddam Hussein would sign the surrender. And do you know what Schwarzkopf said to his staff? “I don’t want any bragging. I don’t want any attitude. I don’t want anybody looking down at ’em. I don’t want anything but utter respect at this ceremony.”
Now, that’s not to say that a surrender ceremony, we ought to go over there and go nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah. I’m just talking about attitudinal shifts, how they’ve happened and why, to the point now that America victorious is America guilty. That America victorious is not the way it should be. That a victorious America represents the problem in the world.
You know, the Democrat Party today and the Democrat Party when I was growing up, there isn’t any comparison. I’m still stunned at how seemingly overnight has been the move of the Democrat Party to total radical socialism.