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Hiroshima continues to polarize on 66th anniversary

"I certainly would be honored – it would be meaningful for me to visit those two cities in the future," he said, but added that he had no concrete travel plans.

In 2010, Obama for the first time in history sent an official US government representative to a memorial event in Japan.

"Obama would probably very gladly bring the issue to a close," said historian Richard Rhodes, who received a Pulitzer Prize for his book, "The Making of the Atomic Bomb."

"But he could only do this in his second term," Rhodes added. Until now, no ruling president has visited the two cities, and Rhodes is convinced that such a step would draw heavy protest from conservative politicians – and voters.

Many Americans would see such a visit as an admission of guilt – for something that, in the eyes of many, doesn't need to be excused.

War crime, or means to an end?

The atomic option, Rhodes says, belonged to the military's repertoire at that time, just like other forms of aerial warfare – like carpet bombing – today considered far too indiscriminate.

"One wanted to avoid the trench warfare of World War I," Rhodes said, in addition to retaliating against the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.

For Jacob Hornberger, founder and president of the libertarian "Future of Freedom Foundation," the dropping of the bomb was "one of the worst war crimes in history," and should never have occurred.

"To attack civilians is a war crime," he said, adding that the United States owed Japan an official apology.

But that's not likely to come any time soon, although opinions of the action have changed over time, according to Allan Winkler, a historian at Miami University in Ohio.

What initially was justified through military necessity has since been reconsidered in the context of the looming Cold War.

"They wanted to prevent Japan from being occupied by the Russians," he said.

Indeed, many historians think the dropping of the bomb became inevitable the moment J. Robert Oppenheimer started the Manhattan Project.

Piqued veterans

But many World War II veterans – especially those involved in dropping the bomb – bridle at doubts about the validity of the decision.

On the 50th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1995, the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., wanted to display artifacts from Japan next to the B-29 aircraft that dropped the bomb.

Markets brace for mayhem as US credit downgraded for first time

Obama’s administration fiercely contests the move, claiming that Standard&Poor’s decision was based on wrong calculations. G7, G20 leaders, ECB hold emergency meetings to find ways of containing spreading turmoil on financial markets. PM Boc: Romania has to abstain from any populist policies. Romanian stock market – steepest drop in the region.

World stock markets are braced for another bloodbath when they open in Asia and across Europe today following the controversial decision by Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the triple A credit rating of the United States.

Over the week, the FTSE 100 index lost 10 per cent with more than GBP 148 bln wiped off the value of leading shares, the third biggest amount in its 30-year history. In Japan, the Nikkei was down 5.4 per cent, in the US the S&P index was 7.2 per cent lower, and on Friday US treasuries showed their single biggest daily rise to 2.75 per cent since December, while gold reached a new peak of USD 1,683, up 10 per cent on the month, ‘The Independent’ reported. Ross Norman of the gold dealer Sharps Pixley said: “What’s happening is simple: investors are de-risking and putting their money into safe havens like gold – which will keep climbing. Investors don’t believe that the politicians or the economists know how to handle this crisis, so they are forcing them into taking decisions.”

Shares in European banks were also hit badly over fears that Europe is heading for a second stage of the banking crisis because of huge exposures to the eurozone’s sovereign debt and whether this will be repaid if the crisis spreads.

The decision by S&P – which is fiercely contested by President Barack Obama’s administration amid claims that it is using the wrong calculations – could lead to higher borrowing costs for the US government, government and consumers, putting further pressure on the US economy’s ability to grow. S&P cut the long-term US credit rating for the first time since it started in 1941, by one notch from AAA to AA-plus, because of concerns about the US budget deficit and the rising debt burden.

David Beers, the head of sovereign ratings at S&P, said over the weekend that the agency’s decision was influenced by a change in Washington’s “political dynamics” that hampered Congress from reaching a more comprehensive plan to cut the deficit. It was suggested there could be a further downgrade later this year.

In July, S&P had placed the United States’ rating on “CreditWatch with negative implications” as the debt ceiling debate devolved into partisan bickering, CNN said. To avoid a downgrade, S&P said the United States needed to not only raise the debt ceiling, but also develop a “credible” plan to tackle the nation’s long-term debt. In its report Friday, S&P ruled that the U.S. fell short: “The downgrade reflects our opinion that the … plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilise the government’s medium-term debt dynamics.” But a senior Obama administration official called Standard & Poor’s move “a facts-be-damned decision,” saying the rating agency admitted to an error that inflated US deficits by USD 2 trillion. U.S. Treasury officials received S&P’s analysis Friday afternoon and alerted the agency to the error, said the administration official, who was not authorised to speak for attribution.

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