It was a day that will live in infamy. Seventy five years ago today the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor was attacked on a tranquil Sunday morning by forces of the empire of Japan. Wave after wave of bombers devastated the American Pacific fleet as sailors and airmen were barely finished with breakfast and paved the way for the U.S. entrance into WW II.

While Japan was eventually brought to it’s knees when atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki five bloody years later, the cowardly ambush at the Hawaiian naval base was the darkest day in American history until 9/11. Again, it was a day that has lived in infamy.

It has been announced that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will join outgoing president Barack Obama at Pearl Harbor this month but according to sources the current leader of the land of the rising sun won’t be offering up an apology.

According to AFP via Yahoo News “Japan PM Abe won’t apologise at Pearl Harbor: government”:

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will honour war dead but won’t apologise when he becomes the first Japanese leader to visit Pearl Harbor this month, a top government spokesman said on Tuesday.

The move follows Barack Obama’s historic May trip to Hiroshima, the first by a sitting US president, where he spoke of victims’ suffering but offered no apology for dropping the world’s first nuclear bomb.

Abe will pay his respects to those who died in Japan’s surprise 1941 attack at the US naval base in Hawaii, which triggered World War II in the Pacific, and highlight a decades-old security alliance between the former enemies.

“The purpose of this visit is to commemorate war dead, not to apologise,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a regular press briefing in Tokyo.

“The visit will serve as an opportunity to demonstrate to future generations our resolve not to repeat the horror and suffering of war as well as an opportunity to showcase the reconciliation between Japan and the United States,” he added.

US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, who is in Japan as part of his last Asian tour, echoed those sentiments Tuesday.

“The US-Japan alliance has never been stronger than it is today,” Carter told reporters during a visit to a Japanese destroyer.

While it has now been three quarters of a century and most of the survivors of the attack are deceased it would be a gesture of respect if Japan’s leader would cough up an apology. This is especially the case considering the location of his visit but as has consistently been the case during Obama’s tenure, there is little respect for this once great nation.

Somehow one gets the feeling that things would be different.

Originally published at Downtrend.com