On March 4 and 5, 2015, a researcher from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Dr. John Tirman, will be the speaker at an event cosponsored by LIPW and the International Studies Program of Franklin and Marshall College. Tirman is s principal research scientist and executive director at MIT Center for International Studies. He recently authored the book The Deaths of Others: The Fate of Civilians in America’s Wars. The book has chapters on the wars in Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan.Tirman’s theme for the two evenings will be an exploration of the fate of civilians and their cultures in Americas Wars. A brief summary of Dr. Tirman’s book can be found in the “News” section of LIPW’s website.Tirman’s presentations dovetail with LIPW’s 2014 focus on the human, environmental and economics costs of war.The January 2014 Annual Meeting emphasized the destructive costs of war. The speaker, Titus Peachey, described the continuing risks to human and animal life, caused by unexploded cluster bombs, based on his many years of experience in Laos. Roughly 25-33 percent of cluster bombs failed to explode on impact as designed and continue to lie scattered throughout the fields, gardens and villages of Laos. Peachey is part of an amazing coalition of international organizations, including the U.S. State Department, seeking to locate and remove these bombs.
Questions surrounding the fate of civilians and the need to wage peace in the aftermath of war are not just part of history– Viet Nam and Korea- but real issues facing nations today.
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