Stephen Lendman

On Saturday, he left Washington on a weeklong visit to Vietnam and Japan, part of his Asia pivot strategy, challenging China where America doesn’t belong.

On Monday, he’ll meet with Vietnamese officials in Hanoi, discuss trade and other bilateral relations, deliver a demagogic address, while ignoring devastating US Southeast Asia bombing, its use of Agent Orange and other banned terror weapons, killing up to four million, mostly civilians - genocide by any standard.

Vietnamese can’t ever forgive or forget, still suffering from US aggression - part of their post-WW II 30-year liberating war, ending with America’s April 1975 humiliating departure.

Undeservedly, Obama will be treated cordially as America’s head of state. On May 25, he’ll leave for Japan, participate in his final G-7 summit in Ise-Shima, then visit Hiroshima on Friday - the first sitting US president to return to the scene of one of America’s great crimes.

The war was over, Japan in process of surrendering. Days apart, America gratuitously incinerated Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 6 and 9, 1945).

At least 200,000 died, many others later from injuries and radiation poisoning, generations to this day harmed by radiologically caused birth defects and other serious health problems.

Truman lied, claiming both bombings hastened war’s end and saved many lives. He authorized using America’s new super-weapon in real time, testing its destructive power, displaying US strength to Soviet Russia, well along in developing its own atom bomb.

At age 11, I was too young to understand the advent of the nuclear age and potential peril it represents.

Today’s fusion thermonuclear weapons are infinitely more powerful than fission ones used on Japan, putting humanity at risk of extinction if used in future US wars.

Obama won’t apologize during his May 27 visit. According to deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes, “(h)e will not revisit the decision to use the atomic bomb…Instead, he will offer a forward-looking vision focused on our shared future.”

It includes permanent US-led wars of aggression, raping one country after another, heading for perhaps inevitable confrontation with Russia and China. If with thermonuclear weapons, humanity’s extinction is likely.

America won’t curb its militarism, its imperial madness, its intention to spend trillions of dollars upgrading its nuclear arsenal and other destructive weapons, heightening the risk of humanity destroying nuclear war.

The lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were never learned. Obama lies claiming he seeks a world without these destructive weapons.

He consistently says one thing, pursues another. The risk of catastrophic nuclear war on his watch was and remains greater than during tenures of any of his predecessors - a far greater danger if Hillary Clinton succeeds him.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III".

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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