{"id":21840,"date":"2013-05-05T02:02:55","date_gmt":"2013-05-05T02:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=21840"},"modified":"2013-05-05T03:46:43","modified_gmt":"2013-05-05T03:46:43","slug":"syria-chemicals-israel-the-fast-and-slow-of-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=21840","title":{"rendered":"Syria, chemicals, Israel: the fast and slow of it"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[ by <strong>Charles Cameron<\/strong> &#8212; always we need the rapid response, always we need the slow, thoughtful understanding ]<br \/>\n.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s almost axiomatic, isn&#8217;t it, we need two brain speeds, two types of intelligence, two modes of analysis, to handle the moment and the times we live in.  Both.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/SPEC-Sham-Chem.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/SPEC-Sham-Chem.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"SPEC Sham Chem\" width=\"588\" height=\"617\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-21841\" srcset=\"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/SPEC-Sham-Chem.png 588w, https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/SPEC-Sham-Chem-285x300.png 285w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 588px) 100vw, 588px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Chevra Hatzolah Israel<\/strong> has the immediacy of Twitter, <strong>Cheryl Rofer<\/strong> and <strong>Aaron Stein<\/strong> the longer view from the Globe and Mail.  Both.<\/p>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>Cheryl Rofer, a good friend of this blog, &#8220;supervised a team developing supercritical water oxidation for destruction of hazardous wastes, including chemical warfare agents, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory&#8221; &#8212; bio from the <em>Globe and Mail<\/em> article.  I don&#8217;t want to pick and choose excerpts from her piece, I&#8217;m certainly no expert on her topic &#8212; but as things heat up in Syria, the considerations she describes offer us significant background.<\/p>\n<p>Read her insights as posted two days ago in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/commentary\/syrias-chemical-weapons-pose-a-decade-long-problem-for-the-world\/article11674949\/\">Syria\u2019s chemical weapons pose a decade-long problem for the world<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>[ edited 45 mins later to add: ]<\/p>\n<p>Blake Hounshell&#8217;s post a few minutes ago for FP, <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.foreignpolicy.com\/posts\/2013\/05\/04\/that_awkward_moment_when_israel_launches_airstrikes_in_syria\">That awkward moment when &#8230; Israel launches airstrikes in Syria<\/a>, begins to bring the two strands of thinking together &#8212; Israel attacks, but cautiously&#8230; <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Syrian state TV is claiming that Israel hit a &#8220;research center,&#8221; while opposition Facebook pages are saying that several elite units on Mt. Qassioun, overlooking Damascus, were the targets. <\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Because it&#8217;s so difficult, not to mention risky, to destroy chemical-weapons stocks from the air, the next-best thing is to take out Assad&#8217;s means of delivering them. And Mt. Qassioun is reportedly where many of the Syrian regime&#8217;s best missiles are kept.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That&#8217;s a lot less worrisome.<\/p>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>As the &#8220;fog of war&#8221; slowly clears, the longer and slower insights will prove to be the more reliable and enduring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ by Charles Cameron &#8212; always we need the rapid response, always we need the slow, thoughtful understanding ] . It&#8217;s almost axiomatic, isn&#8217;t it, we need two brain speeds, two types of intelligence, two modes of analysis, to handle the moment and the times we live in. Both. Chevra Hatzolah Israel has the immediacy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,526,24,47,635,108,440,1,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analytic","category-charles-cameron","category-cognition","category-intelligence","category-israel","category-rofer","category-syria","category-uncategorized","category-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21840"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21864,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21840\/revisions\/21864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}