A knotty question -- he's due to visit the blast site come November and loves to say "I'm sorry." On the other hand, the twin Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings served as a legitimate conclusion to a war that Japan initiated -- with a recent poll showing that 61% of Americans support Truman's decision to employ the atomic arsenal, an approval rating that soars in the Greatest Generation demographic. Though Obama groveling at ground-zero would undoubtedly draw the ire of most Americans above the age of 65, one WWII vet in particular -- Morris Jepson one of the two surviving members of the Enola Gay and the man who armed the "Little Boy" bomb -- pulls no punches on The One's apology-saturated foreign policy. Check out his interview with Japan's Mainichi Daily News:
Mainichi: If you have a chance to meet Obama, would you advise him not to go to Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
J: I would say that's his business because he is going to do what he wants to do.
Mainichi: You understand what he said about the moral responsibility of using the atomic bombs. If he visits Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he may apologize to Hiroshima's citizens. If he apologizes, what would you feel?
J: I would be indignant.
M: Yes, because it saved a lot of Japanese lives, too. Because the invasion could have killed thousands and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of the Japanese and Americans, and dropping the bomb ended the war. That saved a lot of people. I think the Japanese should realize that, that it saved a lot of them. You know a lot more people were killed with firebombing ... than were killed at Hiroshima. So if you think about that, that bomb was really not so bad. It was just part of the war, right? I mean, that the way we feel about it.
J: No, I think the statement that you quoted from Obama's speech is ... saying that the U.S. is guilty of using those weapons.
Mainichi: Moral responsibility?
J: That's called guilt. Isn't that guilt?
Mainichi: You think the U.S. President should not make such remarks?
J: Definitely not, no.
