Japan Pm Shinzo Abe Offers Pearl Harbor Condolences

[mikey4444]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-38438714

Condolences but still no apology apparently !

Is sorry such a difficult thing to say ?

[bhg481]

You CANNOT apologise for something someone else did; it's meaningless.

[dannyk13]

Has the US apologised for Hiroshima?

[naomi24]

I agree with bhg481. Pointless.

[Baldric]

///You CANNOT apologise for something someone else did;
it's meaningless.///

Agree 100%

[Old_Geezer]

As someone who gets fed up with certain folk expecting us to apologise for slavery (rolls eyes upwards) I can't really condemn a country for not issuing a non-felt apology on behalf of folk no longer alive. Besides it leads to an excuse to demand compensation so can just escalate a situation. Maybe best to let sleeping dogs lie.

[mikey4444]

Danny...the issue of Hiroshima is a difficult one, but Japan was the aggressor, not the US.

I had a old colleague that I worked with as an apprentice in BT, and he was a prisoner of the Japanese, in Japan itself, and he always said the Bomb saved his life and many thousands of others, as the Japanese soldiers would have moved into the camps and killed them all, to remove evidence of war crimes that they were very well aware that they had committed. The Japanese behaved like animals all over the region, for many years and deserve no crocodile tears from me.

BHG......with respect...nonsense. Read what the link says :::::

"Shinzo Abe has visited the US naval base at Pearl Harbour, where he offered "sincere and everlasting condolences" to the victims of Japan's attack on the base 75 years ago"

Not sure of the difference between "sincere and everlasting condolences" and a much shorter word....."sorry"

If sorry is meaningless, why isn't condolences ?

[1ozzy]

There have been many atrocities committed in the past in the name of (insert your own reason here). Should the current population make apologies in the name of their fore-bearers?

I think not, what we should be doing is forgiving the sins of our ancestors, and others, then ensuring that humankind can progress together to make a better world that encompasses all.

[mikey4444]

Then I take that all of you think that yesterdays ceremony at PH was "pointless" as well then ?

[dannyk13]

The whole business of offering apologies/condolences for events that happened in the far distant past is meaningless for reasons already mentioned by other posters.

[Old_Geezer]

Condolences admit no blame/responsibility.

[mikey4444]

OG.........then who's fault was it that PH happened at all then ?

[mikey4444]

I'm sorry danny....normally we are not too far from each other on major issues but on this I can't agree.

[Old_Geezer]

People now dead.

[dannyk13]

Mikey, you are entitled to your own opinion as much as I dissgree with .

[dannyk13]

^disagree with it^

[mikey4444]

Thanks danny.

[bhg481]

Some years ago, on an unmanned level crossing near us, a man parked his car on the crossing in a suicide attempt. It worked; unfortunately many people on the train were also killed. My condolences go out to the relatives of all those killed on the train and I'm very sorry the event happened but I can't apologise on behalf of the car driver because I didn't know him.