Japanese Prime Minister Will Not Visit Pearl Harbor

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe does not plan on visiting Hawaii's Pearl Harbor after Barack Obama's upcoming visit to Hiroshima.

Abe said he visited the United States last year, marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II and the war in Japan.  His trip included a speech to Congress and a visit to the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. where he laid a wreath.

The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor took the lives of over 2,000 American service members and civilians.  The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima killed over 150,000 Japanese civilians and military personnel.  However, the two events should not be paralleled as one was preemptive and the other was retaliatory.