Repost-John Gray At The Literary Review Takes A Look At A New Book On Michael Oakeshott: ‘Last Of The Idealists’

July 28, 2015November 13, 2016 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Review here of a new book by author Luke O’Sullivan on 20th century British conservative and thinker Michael Oakeshott. Other books by O’Sullivan on Oakeshott can be found here.

If you’re interested in critiques on the effects of rationalism and utopianism in politics and political theory, and a defense of the familiar and the traditional in the face of Socialist, Marxist, and other ideologies, it’s probably worth looking into.

Drop a line if this is your area.

Gray:

‘That Oakeshott’s thought does not in the end hang together may not be very important. What system of philosophy does? But the fact is ironic given his intellectual antecedents. He was one of the last of the British Idealists, who, as opponents of empiricism, understood truth not as meaning correspondence with any kind of external reality but as a form of internal coherence in our thinking.’

and:

‘He wrote for himself and anyone else who might be interested; it is unlikely that anyone working in a university today could find the freedom or leisure that are needed to produce a volume such as this. Writing in 1967, Oakeshott laments, ‘I have wasted a lot of time living.’ Perhaps so, but as this absorbing selection demonstrates, he still managed to fit in a great deal of thinking’

A nihilist of sorts?

From Edward Feser: ‘Nagel And His Critics Part IV’…A Few Thoughts On Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts Of Liberty”…

John Gray Reviews Jonathan Haidt’s New Book At The New Republic: ‘The Knowns And The Unknowns’

Update And Repost- From YouTube: Leo Strauss On The Meno-More On The Fact/Value Distinction?’

Here’s Nietzsche scholar J.P. Stern on Nietzsche’s anti-Christian, anti-secular morality (Kant, utilitarians), anti-democratic, and anti-Greek (except the “heroic” Greek) biases…See the comments Repost-Camille Paglia At Arion: Why Break, Blow, Burn Was Successful…Update And Repost: ‘A Few Thoughts On Allan Bloom–The Nietzsche / Strauss Connection’

Out of the Valley of modernism, post-modernism, and relativism…one path from Nietzsche’s nihilism is through Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom: Update And Repost: ‘A Few Thoughts On Allan Bloom–The Nietzsche / Strauss Connection’…Some Tuesday Quotations From Leo Strauss…From Peter Berkowitz At Harvard: ‘The Reason Of Revelation: The Jewish Thought Of Leo Strauss’

Can Kant do all that heavy lifting…what are some of the dangers of Kantian reason?: From Bryan Magee’s Talking Philosophy On Youtube: Geoffrey Warnock On Kant…A Few Thoughts On Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts Of Liberty” …

From Roger Sandall: ‘The Slave Girl and the Professor’

July 25, 2015 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Full piece here.

Sandall discussed a book and move titled I Am Slave as well as Kwame Appiah’s essay entitled “What’s Wrong With Slavery.” On some of Appiah’s thinking:

“What he calls “the central moral questions” about liberating slaves are the author’s main concern, and he affirms that freedom comes first. But according to Appiah “freedom is not enough”. After the act of liberation we also have a duty to guarantee every freed slave respect, dignity, and both social- and self-esteem.”

In the ‘best of all possible worlds’, perhaps we do, as far as self-esteem is concerned. Sandall finds Western liberal establishment thinking a target when it comes to the depths of moral arguments necessary to address such an issue:

‘According to the title of a recent book by the amiable Dutch primatologist Frans de Waal we live in The Age of Empathy, something he attributes to our warmly social hominid instincts. Also recently published is a book by Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature, arguing that the modern era has been one of moral progress accompanied by a steady decline in violence. It seems that what Norbert Elias called “the civilizing process” is nowadays on many minds, and Kwame A. Appiah’s 2010 book, The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen, might be seen as broadly in the same vein. Taking an idiosyncratic view of moral and social progress, he sees national and social honour playing a key role in the outlawing of the duel, in the abandonment of Chinese foot-binding, in the abolition of slavery, and in the ongoing struggle by enlightened men and women in Islamic lands against the horror of “honour killings”. All these changes are what he calls “moral revolutions.”

Of course, one moral injunction might run: “One should not enslave another” which sounds straight-forward enough, but as we see in Africa and increasingly in Britain via Africa, some people are still engaging in the practice. In fact, for much of American history, and in various other parts of the world in the past, now, and presumably in the future, many people can be said to violate such an injunction. Human cruelty and indifference, the spoils of war, economic and competitive advantage, and the complex relationship between master and slave just to name a few, are reasons that one person will enslave another, and allow many other people to look away.

‘As a result, what amounts to an uncivilizing processis now flourishing on Europe’s fringes. For that is what the modern slave trade represents — the trade that trapped a 12-year-old girl in the Sudan and has doomed hundreds more African youngsters from elsewhere. This also relates to Appiah’s respectful anthropological account of the several grades of domestic servitude and patriarchal subordination in traditional West African society, grades blandly euphemised by apologists as “our regional family culture,” and that all too easily collapse into subjection and brutality’

Interesting essay.

Some truth and courage in the face of barbarism, but also a lot of sentiment, and dramatic romanticization of Africa: Kony 2012.

Related On This Site: Repost-Roger Sandall At The American Interest: ‘Tribal Realism’…

Romantic primitivism in Australia: ….Roger Sandall At The New Criterion Via The A & L Daily: ‘Aboriginal Sin’

Did Jared Diamond get attacked for not being romantic enough…or just for potential hubris?: Was he acting as a journalist in Papua New-Guinea?: From The Chronicle Of Higher Education: Jared Diamond’s Lawsuit…

Hirsi Ali seems to have found the embrace of the West out of both tribal localism and its customs, Islam, and the short-sightedness of multiculturalism. Notice non-Muslims are not the ones threatening her with death: Tunku Varadarajan Reviews Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s ‘Nomad’ At The Daily Beast…Repost-Ayan Hirsi Ali At The CSM: ‘Swiss Ban On Minarets Was A Vote For Tolerance And Inclusion’

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The West is less violent? I’m not sure I’m convinced by Pinker, anyways: At Bloggingheads Steven Pinker Discusses War And Thomas Hobbes…From Reason.TV Via YouTube: ‘Steven Pinker on The Decline of Violence & “The Better Angels of Our Nature”‘

Evolutionary psychology and moral thinking: Franz De Waal At The NY Times 10/17/10: ‘Morals Without God?’…

Blackburn not so impressed with the Blank Slate: Simon Blackburn Reviews Steven Pinker’s “The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial Of Human Nature” Via the University Of Cambridge Philosophy Department…At Bloggingheads Steven Pinker Discusses War And Thomas Hobbes…From Reason.TV Via YouTube: ‘Steven Pinker on The Decline of Violence & “The Better Angels of Our Nature”‘

Links-Hanoi, Mobile Device Apps and Iran Dealing

July 23, 2015July 23, 2015 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Michael Totten on ‘Hanoi’s Capitalist Revolution’:

Well, it’s always a little more complicated long-term, but hey:

The city is extremely business-friendly. I asked a local man who works for an American company how hard it is for foreigners to invest and go into business in Hanoi. “The Vietnamese government makes it easy,” he says. “Just present them with a business plan, tell them what you want to do, and you’re good to go.” The same goes for small businesses. All you have to do, he says, “is rent the space, pay the taxes, and that’s it.”

Via Marginal Revolution via the Verge: ‘The Mobile Web Sucks‘

‘Apps have become nearly irrelevant on desktops because the web experience is close to perfect, while apps are vitally important on phones because the web experience is dismal. Windows 10 looks like it’s going to be a big step forward for Microsoft, but it won’t be able to bridge that gap. I’m not sure anything can.’

Pejman Yousefzadeh keeps looking to like the Iran deal:

‘Combine the weakness shown at the negotiating table with fact that the “snapback sanctions” regime that will supposedly deter Iranian cheating is hardly robust, and the fact that President Obama undermined the American negotiating position by essentially ruling out a military strike against Iran, and one can readily understand why the Iranians got such a good deal.’

Paul Bracken at the American Interest on the potential long-term consequences of the deal:

‘First, the Iran agreement is likely to increase the spread of nuclear weapons, both in Iran and in the Middle East; it doesn’t alter the strategic environment in any way, nor are there other initiatives underway to do this. The other feature of the agreement that is worrying is that it barely touches Iran’s residual capability to get a bomb.’

But, the peace ideals have been advanced in the world, and that’s likely what matters to many negotiating the deal.

Mars Photos, Seattle Earthquakes & Alberto Nisman-Some Links

July 21, 2015July 21, 2015 / chr1 / Leave a comment

From The Atlantic Photo: ‘A Trip Around The Solar System‘

-Check out the first photograph of Mars ever taken.

Video below from a friend: The liquid water evidence has been piling up, like the sedimentary Mt. Sharp in the bottom of Gale crater. Liquid water was pretty likely at the surface of Mars over where the rover has traveled, long ago tumbling rocks along and smoothing them, forming channels and hardening the sediment into layers of clay leaving sulfate salts behind, but this was a long time ago, probably 3 billion years or more. Evidence seems to point to the smaller (than Earth) Mars not having formed a magnetic field, and thus being bombarded with cosmic radiation and slowly losing its atmosphere bit by bit along with whatever water it likely had.

This most recent Mars mission is one in a long process of gathering layer upon layer of data, and having some of the most knowledgeable folks look at that data, and try to piece a puzzle together.

Could this ancient Mars have harbored life? The conditions for life?

Below is a summary followed by Q and A.

Thanks for the update!

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Oh, it will be big and bad: Possibly 9.0 or greater. On that Pacific Northwest earthquake piece at the New Yorker that’s made the rounds, geologists and seismologists have been putting the pieces together for a while. Did you know that over a 1,000 years ago a fault underneath Seattle caused enormous sections of forest on Mercer Island to subside into the water all at once?

‘The earthquake, estimated at 7 to 7.5 on the Richter Scale, caused rockslides in the Olympic Mountains, and sent several forests-covered sections of Lake Washington’s shoreline into the lake. Two of these slides produced the sunken forests on the west and southeast sides of Mercer Island. The third was on the northeast shore of the lake at O. O. Denny Park. An analysis of sunken forests from Mercer Island indicated they died sometime in the fall, winter, or spring between the years 894 and 997 AD

These landslides were catastrophic events. Sections of Mercer Island more than 150 feet high collapsed, traveling nearly a quarter mile before coming to rest deep in the lake. Their plunge sent huge waves sweeping across the lake’s surface and slamming into the shore, probably devastating native villages. Little wonder they regarded the southern end of Mercer Island with dread.’

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Dexter Filkins takes a look at the death of Argentinian prosecutor Alberto Nisman, whose investigation into terrorism sponsored by the Iranian regime may well have led to his death:

‘By the time Kirchner announced the agreement about the AMIA case, Nisman’s obsession with Iran had expanded beyond Argentina. That year, he and his staff produced a five-hundred-page report outlining what it said was Hezbollah’s and Iran’s terrorist “infiltration” in Latin America. (A U.S. official called the report “spot on.”) A month before Nisman died, he told the writer Gustavo Perednik that he believed Argentina and Iran could be secretly discussing renewing the nuclear agreement of the nineteen-eighties and nineties. “Nisman said this was part of the big deal,” Perednik told me.’

Richard Epstein At The Hoover Institution On The Iran Deal

July 21, 2015July 22, 2015 / chr1 / Leave a comment

The classical liberal/libertarian law and economics thinker is not on board. In fact, the title of his piece is: ‘Obama’s Disastrous Iran Deal.’

As I see it, what much opposition to the Iran deal boils down to is this: The Iranian regime is full of people so untrustworthy that good faith dealing with them is nearly impossible, if not actually impossible. This was a supremely difficult task with a LOT of downside risk involved and opportunity costs to boot.

The Obama administration’s claim has heretofore been: It’s this deal or war. A kind of determined, defiant, activist peace-dealing has reigned, along with the usual political rhetoric and freezing-out of people who think differently.

Many people with dogs in the hunt are not on board with the deal. The major ones being a Republican-controlled Congress, many Americans keen to our security interests, a vast majority of Israelis, as well as most all of the Saudi kingdom (Sunni, oil-rich, and which funds its own Wahhabi terrorism, and which is right next door to its bitter foe).

The devil is in the details, and if the details don’t sufficiently address why a nuclear-armed Iran is so bad, why lifted sanctions empower a laundry-list of anti-American and anti-Western security interests (Putin especially, and the old Moscow-Tehran-Damascus alliance), Hizbollah and Hamas terrorists, destabilizing Shia militias and Revolutionary Guard activity, then the deal won’t achieve what it claims to be able to achieve.

The logic has pretty much remained the same and this is why I’m generally in the opposition: Short of maintaining sanctions, threats of force or other punishment, short of war or some other potential confrontation, the Iranian regime and many of its people will likely get deliverable nukes, and nearly no outcome of this fact will likely lead to greater peace, cooperation, and stability in a volatile region, nor in the world.

Pretty strong language out in the public square from Epstein:

‘This agreement does not require detailed study to conclude that it is a dead loser. Nonetheless, the United States has put it forward in the United Nations for approval before Congress has spoken, and the President, incorrigible as ever, has announced that he will veto any Congressional legislation that seeks to block the treaty. Many members of his own party do not share the President’s unfailing instinct for self-destruction. They should join the Republicans to reject the treaty by veto-proof majorities in both houses before the President and his team can do any further harm. ‘

Any thoughts and comments are welcome.

Feel free to highlight my ignorance.

Reason Via Youtube-A PC High Watermark For The Time Being?

July 19, 2015 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Reason via Youtube: Nick Gillespie and Robby Soave discuss Mattress Girl and the Laura Kipnis incident:

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Cathy Young at the Washington Post: ‘Feminists Want Us To Define These Ugly Sexual Encounters As Rape. Don’t Let Them‘

‘The quest for perfect consent is profoundly utopian. Like all such quests that ignore human realities, it points the way to dystopian nightmare.’

Many folks driving change are semi-radical, utopian and all about what they think ought to change through moral panic, crises, and shouting opponents down. You don’t want such folks making rules for everyone. Facts may not even enter into the picture.

Some details here (pretty graphic and pretty sad).

Cathy Young At The Daily Beast-‘Columbia Student: I Didn’t Rape Her’Cathy Young At Minding The Campus: ‘The Brown Case: Does It Still Look Like Rape?

Related Links: Christina Hoff Sommers (wikipedia) is trying to replacing gender feminism with equity feminism. She also wrote The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men.

Are You Man Enough? Nussbaum v. Mansfield…From The Harvard Educational Review-A Review Of Martha Nussbaum’s ‘Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education.’

Defending Eliot Spitzer…as a man who ought to be free of prostitution laws…but didn’t he prosecute others with those same laws?: Repost: Martha Nussbaum On Eliot Spitzer At The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A very Harvard affair: The Spelke/Pinker debate-The Science Of Gender And Science

Repost-Revisting Larry Summers: What Did He Say Again?…

From The NY Times: ‘Harvard Business School Case Study: Gender Equity’Judg

Some Links On Speech, Free And Costly

July 18, 2015 / chr1 / Leave a comment

From an interesting piece by Russell Blackford on the wages of speech and an open marketplace (thus producing incentives for the kinds of ‘gutter’ journalism found at Gawker):

‘Reflection on such cases can sharpen our conceptions of what free speech is about: of what it is actually for. Speaking for myself, and not for other free speech advocates, I defend a conception rather different from those I often see from political libertarians. I am less fixated on the power of governments; I am less absolutist in opposing restrictions; but at the same time, I worry about a wider range of threats. I worry not only about state power but also threats from private power and popular opinion.’

A quote by Mill I often put up:

“The likings and dislikings of society, or of some powerful portion of it, are thus the main thing which has practically determined the rules laid down for general observance, under the penalties of law or opinion. And in general, those who have been in advance of society in thought and feeling, have left this condition of things unassailed in principle, however they may have come into conflict with it in some of its details. They have occupied themselves rather in inquiring what things society ought to like or dislike, than in questioning whether its likings or dislikings should be a law to individuals. They preferred endeavoring to alter the feelings of mankind on the particular points on which they were themselves heretical, rather than make common cause in defence of freedom, with heretics generally. The only case in which the higher ground has been taken on principle and maintained with consistency, by any but an individual here and there, is that of religious belief:…”

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (New York: Barnes & Noble, 2007), 8-9.

And another quote that makes me feel a fondness for the late Ken Minogue:

‘Roger Kimball recalls a lunch early in their friendship when Ken, puzzling over some implications of utilitarianism, asked: “Imagine someone invented a machine that could eliminate thousands of highway fatalities, only it needed to be fed six people at random to work. Most of us would recoil from such a solution, but why?”’

On This Site: Trolley Problems, Utilitarian Logic, Liberty, Self-Defense & Property

A Few Thoughts-Another Take On J.S. Mill From “Liberal England”

July 17, 2015July 17, 2015 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Full post here.

As someone who generally trends conservative, the best arguments in support of social change to my mind are often moral ones, and well reasoned. They may not change minds, nor the laws, nor political actors, nor even the injustice they seek to rectify. They must go deeper than that.

Maybe it’s a vain hope, but I often find myself hoping that the current round of social changers would seek to extend liberty, and realize that a large government, as well as putting ideological reasoning (cap and trade, public transport, extended college grants) above what I believe to be sound economic reasoning can threaten individual liberty.

This is why I link to the post above where this quote can be found. It is from a British liberal, (which is another, complex issue):

“So read Rorty, Popper and Berlin. Read L.T. Hobhouse if you want and pretend to have read T.H.Green if you must. But above all read the Mill of On Liberty. Then you will see how wrongheaded it is to plead his name in aid of attempts to curb our liberty. Mill’s is the most powerful voice ever raised in support of the expansion of liberty.”

Well said, though I think the author might disagree with me. A conservative as I understand it, places the burden of proof upon those who seek change, and to maintain a debate over the change sought. As an example, I may not be able to ultimately know whether or not women are more inclined to extended periods of spatial/abstract reasoning as found in the natural/mathematical sciences, but I can try and point out that certain wings of feminism have dangerous and revolutionary ideas within them (complete with power theories…driving social change and which can put undue pressure on our politics).

I’m not sure that neither I nor Larry Summers meets such a standard either, but it’s a shot: Repost-Revisting Larry Summers: What Did He Say Again?

Also On This Site: A Few Thoughts On Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts Of Liberty”

Positive and negative rights are also a part of Leo Strauss’ thinking (persona non-grata nowadays), and Strauss thought you were deluded if your were going to study politics from afar, as a “science.” There has been much dispute about this: Update And Repost- From YouTube: Leo Strauss On The Meno-More On The Fact/Value Distinction?’

Kant is a major influence on libertarians, from Ayn Rand to Robert Nozick: A Few Thoughts On Robert Nozick’s “Anarchy, State and Utopia”…Link To An Ayn Rand Paper: The Objectivist Attack On Kant

A Modern Liberal, somewhat Aristotelian and classical?: From The Harvard Educational Review-A Review Of Martha Nussbaum’s ‘Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education.’…Repost: Martha Nussbaum Channels Roger Williams In The New Republic: The First Founder

The Chattanooga Shooting And Another Link On That Iran Deal

July 16, 2015July 16, 2015 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Michael Moynihan At Newsweek: ‘http://www.jihad.com’

Link sent in by a reader to Alexander Hitchens essay: As American As Apple Pie: How Anwar al-Awlaki Became The Face Of Western Jihad

Christopher Hitchens At Slate: ‘Lord Haw Haw And Anwar Al-Awlaki’…From CSIS: ‘Rick “Ozzie” Nelson and Tom Sanderson on the Future of Al Qaeda’,Lawrence Wright At The New Yorker: ‘The Man Behind Bin Laden’…From Slate: ‘In Aleppo, Syria, Mohamed Atta Thought He Could Build The Ideal Islamic City’…Repost-Philip Bobbitt Discusses His Book ‘Terror And Consent’ On Bloggingheads

From Foreign Affairs: ‘Al Qaeda After Attiyya’

The Hitchens factor, and a vigorous defense of free speech: From Beautiful Horizons: ‘Christopher Hitchens and Tariq Ramadan at the 92nd Street Y’…Via YouTube: ‘Christopher Hitchens Vs. Ahmed Younis On CNN (2005)’…From Michael Totten: ‘An Interview With Christopher Hitchens’Islamism, Immigration & Multiculturalism-Melanie Phillips Via Youtube

From YouTube: Roger Scruton On Religious Freedom, Islam & Atheism…From The Middle East Quarterly Via A & L Daily: Europe’s Shifting Immigration Dynamic

Kenan Malik In The Spiked Review Of Books: ‘Twenty Years On: Internalizing The Fatwa’-Salman Rushdie

It’s the fierce critic of religion, new Atheist, and 68er Christopher Hitchens who has defended free speech most vigorously: Repost-From Beautiful Horizons: ‘Christopher Hitchens and Tariq Ramadan at the 92nd Street Y’

From YouTube: Roger Scruton On Religious Freedom, Islam & Atheism…

A British Muslim tells his story, suggesting that classical liberalism wouldn’t be a bad idea…as a more entrenched radical British Left and Muslim immigration don’t mix too well: From Kenanmalik.com: ‘Introduction: How Salman Rushdie Changed My Life’… Via YouTube: ‘Christopher Hitchens Vs. Ahmed Younis On CNN (2005)’…

Free speech (used both well and unwell) meets offended Muslims: ‘Mohammad Cartoonist Lars Vilks Headbutted‘During Lecture’……From The OC Jewish Experience: ‘UC Irvine Muslim Student Union Suspended’…From Volokh: ‘”South Park” Creators Warned (Threatened) Over Mohammed’

Najat Fawzy Alsaeid At The Center For Islamic Pluralism: ‘The War Of Ideologies In The Arab World’…

More On Lars Hedegaard Via the NY Times: Is Europe Waking Up?

Multi-Culturalism In Britain…From The WSJ Weekend Journal-Theodore Dalrymple: “Man Vs. Mutt”

Two Reactions To The Iran Deal-Results Matter, Not Intentions

July 14, 2015July 16, 2015 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Rick Francona at Middle-East Perspectives:

The choices were never good:

‘Let me first say that I hope that this deal works. A nuclear weapon in the hands of the mullahs in Tehran would be a disaster, not just for the Middle East, but the entire world. That said, I am concerned that the deal as structured may not prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. I am not confident that this Administration has negotiated the type of agreement that will be successful’

Adam Garfinkle takes a slightly longer view (and links to a leaked copy of the text)

‘We should therefore begin now quietly developing the means to unilaterally sterilize, or suppress to the extent possible, the prospects for nuclear weapons exchanges within the Middle East, and do some serious thinking about how to integrate such a capability into U.S. military doctrine. Once we’re ready, it may be that announcing the capability will function as a disincentive to proliferation, but that’s a call that cannot be made this far out.’

If you’ve got links heavy on analysis, and lighter on politics, rhetoric, and posturing, send them my way.

Thanks.

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Addition: Pejman Yousefzadeh has read the deal and gone through a list of concerns. Among them: Iran gets to stockpile ballistic missiles, a key component for deliverable nukes, and what’s to say Iran will allow inspections? The international community typically has no teeth, and weapons inspectors little leverage with really bad actors. The goal is not to allow the Iranian regime to simply buy time and keep doing what it’s been doing.

‘Also, there’s this: Vladimir Putin appears to have an awful lot of power with which to influence the course of this agreement. Anyone really believe that he will exercise that power in a fashion that will please the United States, or will advance American national security interests?’

In hearing Ben Rhodes’ talk, and Obama’s speech after the deal, I keep being reminded that results matter, not intentions. When you’re dealing with an Islamist regime, with a deep anti-American hatred, that represses many of its own people counter to our interests, that runs guns, terrorism, and its brutal influence around the region, how you deal is key.

On this site, a lot of skepticism: Henry Kissinger & George Schulz Via The WSJ: ‘The Iran Deal And Its Consequences’]…Israel, Iran, & Peace: Andrew Sullivan Responds To Charges Of Potential Anti-Semitism…Some Saturday Links On Iran-Skepticism, To Say The Least George Shultz & Henry Kissinger At The Hoover Institution: ‘What A Final Iran Deal Must Do’ So what are our interests and how do we secure them as the fires in the Middle-East rage? Michael Totten makes a case here in Why We Can’t Leave The Middle-East.’ He gets push-back in the comments