war in libya

As allied forces enter their sixth day of strikes over Libya - so far failing to stop Moamar Gaddafi's tanks and ground forces from shelling rebel-held towns - questions are being asked about the future of the strategy.

Allied warplanes are now attacking regime forces in built-up areas in the rebel strongholds of Misrata and Ajdabiya, but fighting is continuing on the ground.
Some analysts believe the rebels do not have what it takes to defeat Mr Gaddafi by themselves, and warn that an allied ground invasion of Libya is almost a certainty.
But the US is hosing down any ideas of putting troops on the ground and fending off suggestions it is already at war with Libya.
In a briefing that stuck carefully to the official script, US Rear Admiral Gerard Hueber would not explain what the coalition would do next if Mr Gaddafi's forces could not be beaten from air.
"Can you achieve your mission of 1973 UN Security Council resolution without ground forces?" a reporter asked.
"It's my primary focus today to discuss the current operations that we are in, and I would not project or discuss future military operations," Rear Admiral Hueber said.
"The impression we get from you is it's gotten worse since the allies started bombing. Is that accurate?" another reporter asked.
"Our mandate now is to enforce the no-fly zone and to allow humanitarian assistance to be available to the Libyan people," Rear Admiral Hueber replied.
When asked whether or not the US was at war with Libya, US State Department spokesman Mark Toner also had trouble answering.
"We are, uh, implementing UN Security Council resolution 1973. It is clearly a combat operation - a combat mission," he said.
"As the president made very clear, there will be no US ground forces involved in this."
Whatever the mission ends up becoming, the US hopes to hand over responsibility for command of the mission as early as this weekend.

Tough words

As well as scrutiny from the general public, US president Barack Obama is having a tough time with his political adversaries over his handling of the situation in Libya.
Mr Obama touched down in the US late on Wednesday afternoon (local time), officially ending his five-day, three-nation tour of Latin America.
But he had mail waiting for him - a tough-worded letter from the most senior Republican, house speaker John Boehner, demanding more details on the president's military mission.
Mr Boehner said he was troubled by the lack of details and wanted to know the benchmark for success.
He wrote: "Is it an acceptable outcome for Gaddafi to remain in power after the military effort concludes in Libya? If not, how will he be removed?"
Mr Obama's deputy national security adviser, Denis McDonough, responded.
"We think it's a good opportunity to continue that conversation with Congress," Mr McDonough said.
"The bottom line and the president's view on this is it's important to bring the country along."
Earlier, key Democratic senators held a conference call with reporters to defend the president's methods as cautious and thoughtful.
They said the future of US ties with emerging Muslim leaders was at stake.
Secretary of state Hillary Clinton's message for the Libyan leader is that the crisis can end if he steps down.
"It will be up to Gaddafi and his insiders to determine what their next steps are," she said.
"But we would certainly encourage that they would make the right decision and not only institute a real comprehensive ceasefire but withdraw from the cities and military actions and prepare for a transition that does not include Colonel Gaddafi."
That was also the suggestion from US defence secretary Robert Gates, who was making an unannounced visit to Cairo.
"I think there are any number of possible outcomes here and no-one's in a position to predict them," he said.

Battles rage

As pressure mounts on Mr Obama, Western allies continue their air strikes over Libya.
Coalition forces say Mr Gaddafi's air force has now been crippled, but they have so far failed to stop his tanks and ground forces from shelling rebel-held towns.
Several explosions have been heard in the capital, Tripoli, while battles continue to rage in the towns of Misrata and Ajdabiya.
Libyan officials have reportedly taken journalists to a Tripoli hospital to see what they said were the charred bodies of 18 military personnel and civilians killed by Western warplanes or missiles overnight.
Western air strikes in Misrata temporarily silenced an artillery bombardment from pro-Gaddafi forces, but later a doctor reported government forces were closing in on and firing at a local hospital struggling to help hundreds of wounded.
Other residents say a "massacre" has been taking place in the town, where snipers have been targeting civilians.
The siege of Misrata, now weeks old, has become increasingly desperate with water cut off for days and food running out, doctors operating on patients in hospital corridors and many of the wounded left untreated or simply turned away.
Pro-Gaddafi forces have also resumed their bombardment of Zintan, another rebel-held town in west Libya, and tanks were expected there.
Meanwhile, six NATO nations have agreed to contribute up to 16 vessels to prevent Mr Gaddafi from bringing in weapons from the Mediterranean, with Turkey offering five warships and a submarine despite its reservations about the military action.
The NATO mission will have the means to intercept and board suspicious ships and the authority to fire a warning shot across the bow of vessels trying to slip away, a NATO official said.


http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/24/3172835.htm?section=justin

Government vs japan

By 9:30 a.m. local time on March 22, the emergency shelter at Saitama Super Arena, just north of Tokyo, had reached its maximum capacity of 500 volunteers. The other 1,500 do-gooders wanting to help the displaced people of Futaba, the town closest to ground zero of the earthquake- and tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, were turned away by volunteers holding hand-printed cardboard signs that said "We are sorry, but we cannot take any more volunteers. Please try again tomorrow."
Inside the arena, which normally hosts rock concerts, some 5,000 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear-plant refugees, including those from Futaba, were trying to carve out a normal routine in their makeshift homes, composed of squares of blankets and mats. There to help them were the volunteers, who handed out free bananas, blankets, diapers, toys and other necessities for people who escaped with little more than the clothes on their backs. Some volunteers held signs presenting complimentary day-care services, while others offered free shampoos, blow-dries and shaves at local beauty parlors. "It's the least I can do," said Hideyuki Tanaka, a stylist with dyed blond hair who held a sign offering free salon services. "I don't have any other skills except for this, so I thought I could make this small contribution." By noon, some 60 evacuees had taken advantage of free services at his Maggie Friends beauty salon. (See TIME's exclusive pictures of the devastation in Japan.)
The Saitama emergency shelter is a model of organization and goodwill, with masking-tape arrows pointing the way to the bath, food and clothing lines. Bowing, smiling volunteers shepherd dazed-looking evacuees from one line to another. But in northeastern Japan, where an estimated 21,000 are dead or missing and another 350,000 are homeless as of March 22, the country's labyrinthine bureaucracy has seriously hampered efforts to deliver aid. Some shelters still have no heat, while others are rationing rice balls. In a country that prides itself on efficiency, the fact that 11 days after the earthquake, displaced people are still hungry and, even if they have cars, cannot get food because of a shortage of fuel is a shocking turn of events. The aid bottlenecks are all the more surprising given that most Japanese anticipated that their government would respond quickly. "There are very high expectations of the government here, and civil society is struggling to find its place," says Randy Martin, director of global emergency operations for Mercy Corps, a U.S.-based NGO. "The most important thing is to get the supply chain going again."
In other natural disasters that I've covered, steady streams of local and international aid have usually converged upon the stricken area within four days of the event. This has happened even in developing-world countries with far less infrastructure than Japan has. But in Tohoku, as Japan's northeast is called, aid has trickled in agonizingly slowly, despite the mobilization of 100,000 Japanese soldiers for the relief effort. It took more than a week after the earthquake, for example, for the region's highways, which are reserved for emergency vehicles, to be filled with the kind of aid convoys that typically race to disaster scenes. (See Japan's history of massive earthquakes.)
One major bottleneck has been Japan's fondness for red tape. "In special times, you have to do things in a special way," says Kensuke Kobayashi, an IBM employee in Tokyo who has tried to organize relief efforts to Tohoku from the Japanese capital. "But in Japan, there is a legal wall that stops everything." Japanese shipping company NYK offered to provide a container ship for helicopters to land on when ferrying in relief supplies to coastal areas. But the government rejected the offer because the NYK shipmates lacked the proper licenses to help with such work. After some wrangling, volunteer foreign doctors were told that because they didn't have Japanese medical licenses, they could conduct only the "minimum necessary medical procedures" in the disaster zone.
Some medicine donations from overseas haven't reached the many elderly suffering in the earthquake's aftermath because Japanese regulatory agencies have not yet given the drugs approval. Local logistics companies have complained - off the record, for fear of angering the bureaucrats whom they depend on for future licensing - of days-long waits for permission from the central government to deliver donated goods. Only when their trucks get the magic pass can they start moving toward Tohoku. Until then, the boxes of relief goods, some of which were donated just hours after the earthquake and tsunami hit, sit in Tokyo warehouses.
See how to help Japan's earthquake and tsunami victims.
See TIME's complete coverage of the Japan earthquake.

Then there's fuel, which is in plentiful supply in southern Japan but all but impossible to procure easily in the north without special permits. To get even a 2.6 gal. (10 L) ration, cars in Tohoku often have to wait for half a day. When TIME wanted to accompany an NGO helicopter delivering aid to one stricken area, we were given permission on one condition: that TIME hire a car to drive the aid supplies to the airfield. The NGO's cars were out of gas and had no way to get the relief goods to the chopper. Such shortages have been repeated writ large, hampering even the efforts of major organizations like the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, which was one of the first groups on the scene.
There have been some extenuating circumstances. The radiation leaking from the Fukushima plant has meant that aid vehicles have to take a wide berth around a region contaminated by higher-than-normal radiation levels. Nevertheless, there are other ways to Tohoku. Indeed, one of the first organizations to start relief convoys in the northeast was none other than the yakuza, Japan's famous gangsters. Unconstrained by reams of regulations, the underworld representatives, whose business tentacles extend to the trucking business, simply started delivering aid on their own, without government approval. (See pictures of objects found in the rubble of Japan's quake.)
Citizen volunteers have been actively discouraged by the government from jumping into their cars and delivering aid themselves. That's because after the 1995 Kobe earthquake, roads into the area were jam-packed with well-meaning citizens whose endeavors hindered larger aid efforts. But there's a fine balance to be struck between not overwhelming damaged infrastructure and leaving it worryingly underutilized. And while U.S. military aid sorties conducted from American bases in Japan have been accepted by the Japanese government, other international organizations have been quietly told they're not needed - a stunning response given the magnitude of the disaster. "Everything has to go through government emergency centers," says one international NGO representative in Tokyo. "But they're very slow to respond and can't keep up with the flow of aid. They should let us get in there and start getting relief to people instead of worrying about paperwork." (Comment on this story.)
Meanwhile, back at Saitama Super Arena, Kouhei Nagatsuka, 18, ponders the strange fact that he just graduated from high school without a proper ceremony in Futaba, the town next to where the Fukushima plant is located. On March 11, the earthquake destroyed his home - or so he has heard from a friend who went back to the ravaged town to take a look. Nagatsuka and his family were first herded into an emergency shelter for earthquake and tsunami victims. Then, just as they were contemplating trying to salvage what they could from their home, a Fukushima reactor began spewing radioactive material into the air. Four days ago, they arrived as nuclear-plant refugees to Saitama. (See more pictures of the aftermath of Japan's earthquake.)
As Nagatsuka scrounged for warm clothes for his four siblings in a heap of donated goods, news that steam and smoke were again pouring from two of the plant's damaged reactors spread among the displaced Futaba residents. (By Tuesday evening, plant engineers said they had laid power cables to all six of the facility's nuclear reactors, though it's not clear whether the electricity can be turned on or whether pumps needed to cool down overheating reactors will work.) Already, reports of vegetables, water and milk tainted by small levels of radiation from the leaking nuclear plant have raised concerns about the accident's long-term effects - even if engineers are able to tame the reactors in the coming days and weeks. "I'm afraid I'll never be able to go back there," says Nagatsuka, who spent time volunteering when he was in high school. "I was supposed to start my adult life, but I guess I'll have to do that someplace else."http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20110322/wl_time/08599206077300

bully = FAIL !!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqtN258HNzE

Tomahawk missile being launched toward Libya

Class Reflection !

My reflection on our class discussion is that everyone came with very good facts and information . No one really disagreed on others opinions , our class was on the same page that something in our education system  has to change because if it stay's the same our nation will go no where and wont be seen like we take our education serious.

U.S stricks in Libya

WASHINGTON – U.S. and British ships and submarines launched the first phase of a missile assault on Libyan air defenses Saturday and a senior American defense official said it was believed substantial damage was inflicted.
In the strikes, 112 Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired at more than 20 coastal targets to clear the way for air patrols to ground Libya's air force.
While U.S. defense officials cautioned that it was too early to fully gauge the impact of the onslaught, the official said that given the precision targeting of the Navy's cruise missiles, they felt that Libya's air defenses suffered a good deal of damage.
The official spoke on grounds of anonymity because the ongoing mission.
In announcing the mission during a visit to Brazil, President Barack Obama said he was reluctant to resort to force but was convinced it was necessary to save the lives of civilians. He reiterated that he would not send American ground troops to Libya.
"We cannot stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people there will be no mercy," he said in Brasilia.
While U.S. defense officials said it was too early to gauge the impact of the onslaught, one senior official said that given the precision targeting of the Navy's cruise missiles, they believe Libya's air defenses suffered a good deal of damage.
It was clear the U.S. intended to limit its role in the Libya intervention, focusing first on disabling or otherwise silencing Libyan air defenses, and then leaving it to European and perhaps Arab countries to enforce a no-fly zone over the North African nation.

Navy Vice Adm. William E. Gortney, director of the Pentagon's Joint Staff, told reporters the cruise missile assault was the "leading edge" of a coalition campaign dubbed Operation Odyssey Dawn. Its aim: prevent Moammar Gadhafi's forces from inflicting more violence on civilians -- particularly in and around the rebel stronghold of Benghazi -- and degrading the Libyan military's ability to contest a no-fly zone.

"This is not an outcome the U.S. or any of our partners sought," Obama said from Brazil, where he is starting a five-day visit to Latin America. "Our consensus was strong, and our resolve is clear. The people of Libya must be protected, and in the absence of an immediate end to the violence against civilians our coalition is prepared to act, and to act with urgency."

A chief target of Saturday's cruise missile attack was Libya's SA-5 surface-to-air missiles, which are considered a moderate threat to some allied aircraft. Libya's overall air defenses are based on older Soviet technology but Gortney called them capable and a potential threat to allied aircraft.
Also targeted: early warning radars and unspecified communications facilities, Gortney said. The U.S. military has extensive recent experience in such combat missions; U.S. Air Force and Navy aircraft repeatedly attacked Iraq's air defenses during the 1990s while enforcing a no-fly zone over Iraq's Kurdish north.
Cruise missiles are the weapon of first choice in such campaigns; they do not put pilots at risk, and they use navigational technologies that provide good precision.
The first Tomahawk cruise missiles struck at 3 p.m. EDT, Gortney said, after a one-hour flight from the U.S. and British vessels on station in the Mediterranean.
They were fired from five U.S. ships — the guided-missile destroyers USS Stout and USS Barry, and three submarines, USS Providence, USS Scranton and USS Florida.
The U.S. has at least 11 naval vessels in the Mediterranean, including three submarines, two destroyers, two amphibious warfare ships and the USS Mount Whitney, a command-and-control vessel that is the flagship of the Navy's 6th Fleet. Also in the area are Navy P-3 and EP-3 surveillance aircraft, officials said.
Gortney initially had said that it could take as long as 12 hours to assess the effectiveness of Saturday's strikes. Then a high-altitude Global Hawk unmanned surveillance plane would overfly the target areas to get a more precise view, the admiral said. He would not say how long the attacks on Libyan air defenses would last, but he stressed that Saturday's assault with cruise missiles was the first phase of a multi-stage mission.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was scheduled to fly to Russia on Saturday afternoon to begin a week-long overseas trip, postponed his departure for 24 hours. Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Gates decided he should remain in Washington to monitor developments in Libya at the outset of U.S. strikes.
Gates had been skeptical of getting involved in Libya's civil war, telling Congress earlier this month that taking out Libya's air defenses was tantamount to war. Others have worried that the mission could put the U.S. on a slippery slope to deeper involvement in yet another Muslim country — on top of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hours after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton attended an international conference in Paris that endorsed military action against Gadhafi, the U.S. and Britain kicked off their attacks.
At a news conference in Paris, Clinton said Gadhafi had left the world no choice but to intervene urgently and forcefully to protect further loss of civilian life.
"We have every reason to fear that, left unchecked, Gadhafi would commit unspeakable atrocities," she told reporters.
Clinton said there was no evidence that Gadhafi's forces were respecting an alleged cease-fire they proclaimed and the time for action was now.
"Our assessment is that the aggressive action by Gadhafi's forces continues in many parts of the country," she said. "We have seen no real effort on the part of the Gadhafi forces to abide by a cease-fire."
In addition to the three submarines and two destroyers, the U.S. Navy ships in the Mediterranean include two amphibious warships, the USS Kearsarge and USS Ponce, and a command-and-control ship, the USS Mount Whitney. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_us_libya

Videos of the earthquake !!!

An 8.9 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Northeast Japan spawned a ferocious tsunami that's caused massive destruction; flattening whole cities, starting raging fires, and killing hundreds.
We've gathered some videos that show the scope of the disaster, and you can also see The Atlantic's collection of photos of the quake.
Footage of the tsunami quickly enveloping the city of Sendai, Japan. Officials say hundreds are dead, and the death toll is rising. As the sun rose on Japan, the rescue operations began:




http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theenvoy/20110311/ts_yblog_theenvoy/watch-raw-footage-of-the-japan-earthquake-and-tsunami