Professor Andrew Bacevich to speak on “America’s Endless Wars”

The following was sent by event organizers:

Professor Andrew Bacevich will give a talk on “America’s Endless Wars” on Sunday, March 25^th at 2:30 pm at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Medford (147 High Street, Medford). This talk is especially timely given the recent discussions about the U.S. or Israel bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities. The talk is being sponsored by the UUCM Social Justice Committee. The talk is open to the public and is free of charge.

Andrew J. Bacevich is Professor of International Relations at Boston University and a retired career officer (Colonel) in the United States Army. He is the author of several highly regarded books on United States foreign policy, including Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War (Macmillan, 2010), The Limits of Power: The End to American Exceptionalism (Macmillan, 2008), and The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War (Oxford University Press, 2005). Prof. Bacevich has been a persistent, vocal critic of the US occupation of Iraq (he called the conflict a “catastrophic failure”), and in 2007 he described George W. Bush’s endorsement of such “preventive wars” as “immoral, illicit and imprudent.” His son, also an Army officer, died fighting the Iraq War in May, 2007.

Bacevich graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1969 and served in the United States Army during the Vietnam War, serving in Vietnam from the summer of 1970 to the summer of 1971. Later he held posts in Germany, including the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the United States, and the Persian Gulf up to his retirement from the service with the rank of Colonel in the early 1990s. He holds a Ph.D. in American Diplomatic History from Princeton University, and taught at West Point and Johns Hopkins University prior to joining the faculty at Boston University in 1998. He was the director of Boston University’s Center for International Relations from 1998 to 2005.