The Radical Conservative

Vietnam veteran and author Andrew Bacevich on American decadence

and the failure of the Iraq War.

By David Barsamian

At least at first glance, Andrew Bacevich might seem an unlikely candidate to have become one of the Iraq War’s fiercest critics. A graduate of West Point and a Vietnam War veteran, Bacevich spent 23 years in the military before retiring as a colonel. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, he contributed to the conservative Weekly Standard and National Review. These days, however, his writing is much more likely to appear in The Nation.

But it’s difficult to say whether this marks a change in Bacevich’s principles or those of the American conservative movement. As he wrote in his 2005 book, The New American Militarism, “My disenchantment with what passes for mainstream conservatism, embodied in the present Bush administration and its groupies, is just about absolute. … [M]y views have come to coincide with the critique long offered by the radical left: It is the mainstream itself, the professional liberals as well as professional conservative who define the problem.”

A professor of history and international relations at Boston University, Bacevich’s latest book is The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, which draws on the philosopher Reinhold Niebuhr’s warnings against “our dreams of managing history.”

He recently spoke with In These Times about conservatives’ response to his book, Iraq and why we shouldn’t expect too much change from an Obama administration.

In The Limits Of Power, you look at the consumption patterns of the average American citizen today. Given the urgency of a wartime situation, you’re very critical.

It’s not simply that I’m troubled by consumption in the context of a global war. I’m troubled by the patterns of consumption even apart from the war—in that we have come to expect that it is our due to live beyond our means, both as individuals and as a nation.

I’m not some kind of ascetic monk. I don’t live in a cave. I probably enjoy a pretty good standard of living relative to many other people. Nonetheless, one senses a kind of a compulsion to acquire in our society. There is a mindlessness about it that I find troubling. Maybe that’s just me admitting that I’m kind of an old-fashioned cultural conservative, but it’s a concern especially because we can’t pay for all the stuff that we’re buying.

Add the war on top of that, and it does become more troubling...

I have really appreciated David Barsamian and the interviews he has done over the years. For the full interview, please go here: The Radical Conservative

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When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. ~ Jimi Hendrix

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness. ~ The Dalai Lama