A Day in the Life of Me: U.S. Military Intervention in Libya

Click here for CNN's report of the Libian attacks

The minute Brian Williams appeared on my screen for the daily 5:30 world news, i noticed a very, very tired look in his expression. Call me crazy, but by watching someone 30 minutes everyday since you first watched television, you pick up on these things. Anywho, Brian looked more concerned and worried than usual. First briefed headline of the evening? U.S. sends military aid to Libya. GREAT.

Then the next few minutes were a difficult few to decode, so let's go through this step by step.

Step 1: I look over at my dad. Well, actually I was in the process of looking over at my dad, but I could have guessed his expression just as easily coming from the loud "YES!!!" I heard coming from his direction on the couch.

Step 2: I begin to develop a sense of disappointment in Obama for agreeing to go through with this intervention

Step 3: My younger brother hears my dad yell "YES!!!" and gets frightened and jumps up from the couch, almost taking his dinner down with him

Step 4: My mom has a look of both disappointment and dissatisfaction; both in due to the news report as well as the few grains of rice that had spilled out of my brother's bowl

Step 5: Brian continues on to the second headline briefing of radiation discovered in Japanese food

Step 6: I sigh heavily and begin to think about how the world is going to end with us eating radiated food and being drenched in bombs while my mom is trying to shush my dad up so she can listen to the rest of the Japanese story

Step 7: My dad keeps yelling yes and clapping his hands and gets up and starts to do a happy dance

Step 8: We all begin to laugh; but inside I am truthfully thinking that Obama seems to be making a mistake...

Step 9: we finally make it through watching the news.

It's a weird feeling developing a different idea than of someone in your family. Usually with events relating to the Middle East, I agree with my father and understand his point of view much better than most. However, I couldn't find it in my heart to really support the U.S. military action now taken in Libya.

So the same day, I have a few friends come over. As we start discussing the news like the awesome/cool geeks we are, I bring up the U.S. military intervention in Libya. A surge of Deja vu overwhelms me as they both begin to throw their hands in the air and yell, "YES!!!"

Okay by this point I was seriously getting ticked. Why was everyone supporting this notion? To go in and bomb another country? We are already in two un-winnable wars in the Middle East! Why another?! DID YOU NOT READ MY LAST IN-CLASS ESSAY???? HELLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO AMERICA IMPLEMENTING THEIR DEMOCRATIC WAYS IN MIDDLE EAST = BIG NO NO. TRUST ME.

But then the explanations began pouring out: "but see they are killing innocent civilians....", "Lybia is America's established country! We need to support it....", "the guy is crazy! We gotta send in re-enforcements! We aren't battling, just dropping bombs here and there."

Okay yes, but 1) America has no money 2) our resources are already (and still ) in Iraq and Afghanistan 3) is it really America's responsibility?

I feel bad for all the innocent lives that these brutal uprisings in Lybia and across the middle east have brought, however is America really needed in this too? I'm sure my opinion of this U.S. intervention will change within the course of this involvement, however as of now, I'm just not seeing how or why America is taking initative in Lybia. I mean, okay yes I do understand, however I'm just confused on how and what to feel. In the mean time, the president still has my support; it's just unclear to me (as of now) how much of it is really there.

Japanese Nuclear Troubles Reach Germany

The 8.9 earthquake that shook Japan to its core has reverberated globally all the way to mainland Germany.

Earlier this week thousands of Germans protesters demaned that their country's nucelar power plants be shut down in result of Japan's disasterous nuclear reactor woes. According to CNN News, Thorben Becker, of the Federation for Enviornmental Protection, claims that although this push for the closing of German nuclear raectors has been evident, the devistation of the Japanese reactors has prompted a much larger demand to close these facilities. With radiation fears being felt abroad (almost seemingly more so than domestically in Japan), German protesters marched in Berlin for the closing and removal of their nuclear power plants.

By forming a "...45-kilometer human chain between Stuttgart and the nuclear power plant Neckarwestheim," as reported by the Berlinian police, protesters sought this defiance out to be a peaceful one. In total, roughly 60,000 people showed up to this support raly, orgnized by a conglomeration of anti-nuclear reform groups.

However German chancellor Angela Merkel announced a three-month extension period for the plants, as well as a law that extends the lifespan of the German nuclear facilities.

Even though Japan is seemingly on the other side of the world, it's effects have and will continue to be ever-lasting.

5th Largest Earthquake Throws Earth off Balance

As the world begins to pour in millions of dollars worth of flood relief to the desperate nation, scientists have begun to evaluate the long-lasting effects of the world's 5th largest earthquake.

Here are a few things that has happened within the last 3 days of this terrible global phenomenon:

•  Has shifted the earth's axis by 6.5 inches
• Was caused by the pacific tectonic plate diving under the North American plate, which shifted Eastern Japan towards North America by 13 feet, now shortening the length of the Pacific Ocean
• Sank Japan down 24 inches
• Chopped off 1.6 microseconds off of the 24 hour day, due to the abrupt shift in the Earth's mass which is now causing the planet to rotate slightly faster.....darn centrivical forces....
• thousands of corpses floating back to shore as the aftershocks of the tsunami wave being to recede 
• small hints of nuclear radiation detected within a 30 mile radius of the exploding power plants

........and countless more emotional, physical, economic, and global tradgides. Below are linked videos and pictures of the destruction: 

• Video of Tsunami flowing in
• Photos of Japanese reactions

Devastating Death Toll and Destruction in Japan

As if the massive 8.9 earthquake wasn't enough destruction for one nation, the tsunami that followed presented an even bigger problem to the ever changing landscape of Japan. Since Japan is a nautical-based country, naturally many thousands of people would congregate along the island nation's many coast lines, therefore putting millions in the path of danger if a tsunami were to strike. And one did. In the city of Minami Sanriku alone, half of the city's population -9,500 people- have been estimated to be unaccounted for. That is more than five times the amount of students and faculty at Kennedy.

As CNN reporter Paula Hancocks writes, "Only a handful of buildings were left standing, with the rest a mangled mess of rubble. A boat sat on the edge of town, carried more than two miles inland by the tsunami."

Local government official Choushin Takahaski stated that "Most people ran away... some had to leave the elderly or disabled behind on the second floor. I think a lot of those left behind probably died." He then continues on, "I saw the bottom of the sea when the tidal wave withdrew and houses and people were being washed out, I couldn't watch anymore."


With massive increase in natural disasters happening worldwide -Australian and Brazilian floods, earthquake in Japan, heavy snow storms in the United States- everyone can has has been trying to provide the rest of the world with as much aid and support as possible.


 

Bahrianian Students Attacked in Peaceful Protest

As Middle Eastern revolts continue to progress, tragic news stories like this are frequently becoming part of the everyday norm. Yet sadly, we just have to sit and watch. Are we capable of preventing these daily revolts and tradgies? Well, of course not, no. But this hopefully promotes specific governments to take a step back from their smokescreen lives and look at what is really happening to their countries. Eyewitnesses of this most recent attack stated that pro-government forces attacked a peaceful protest of 5,000 college students. According to the CNN Wire Staff, "About 150 supporters of the royal family tried to get onto Bahrain University campus during the protest there, but only some managed to get in. An unknown number of people were injured, but it's not clear how many or how badly."

Why can't we all live in peace? At least deaths aren't being reported. Most government attack weapons consist of tear gas; still those are brutally painful. Reports earlier this week tell of approximately 350 protesters withholding tear gas during their advancement. Now understandably, with a Sunni Muslim minority government ruling over the predominately Shiite island nation in the Persian Gulf, yeah you are going to see rev lots happening. However when the government does not recognize these revolts or acknowledges them as happening at all, there is a problem. A problem that must be solved soon.

Earthqake's Effect on Japanese Nuclear Reactors

As the aftershocks of the massive 8.9 earthquake shudders in the distance of the Pacific ocean, much of Japan has drastically been reduced down to nothing but a pile of wet rubble. However what most effected by the massive earthquake-tsunami combo were the nuclear reaction power plants scattered throughout the island. Early reports Friday night stated that multiple nuclear reactors had exploded, causing much more destruction on top of the devastating death toll already reported in Japan.

So how did this happen, what were the causes of it, and how could it have been prevented? Well as Dylan Renyolds of CNN news reports in his "Q&A: What Has Quake Done to Japanese Nuclear Reactors?" an exploration of the structure of these power plants is needed to understand the basics of this atrocity.

The reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant were hit hard this past week, all of them being boiling-water generators. The fuel inside each one is comprised of Uranium 235 which then undergoes nuclear fission. Because of this reaction, massive amounts of heat are given off, causing the  water to steam. The steam is then used to power a turbine in order to generate electricity.

Now these power plants have an automatic "earthquake-proof" feature that are designed to shut down all reactors in use and flood the systems with water to cool them down before further instruction. However because of the Tsunami, the water generators were flooded by the massive waves, causing them to malfunction. Ironic, I know.

So as you can very well guess, the three out of the six nuclear generators that were up and running last week overheated as a part of their earthquake warning feature; and due to the lack of the available water cooling system as a result of the Tsunami, the power plant exploded.

Nature's wrath.

• Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Saturday that the plant operator confirmed there was no damage to the steel container housing the reactor, just that an explosion due to a massive build-up of heat occurred
• Associate Fellow for Energy Malcolm Grimston stated that he believed the explosion had been caused by a build-up of pressure inside the inner containment of the reactor, and didn't have any direct result with the physical nuclear reactors themselves."Because they lost power to the water cooling system, they needed to vent the pressure that's building up inside. My suspicion is that as the temperature inside the reactor was rising, some of the metal cans that surround the fuel may have burst and at high temperature, that fuel cladding can react with water to produce zirconium oxide and hydrogen. That hydrogen then will be part of the gases that need to be vented. That hydrogen then mixes with the surrounding air. Hydrogen and oxygen can then recombine explosively. So it seems while the explosion wasn't directly connected with the nuclear processes, it was indirectly connected, because the hydrogen was only present because of what was going on in the reactor core." (Click here for the full story)

Be it a pressure build-up or an extreme rise in temperature, Japan's nuclear plants are still at risk of major catastrophic occurrences. As rescue efforts are still underway, much focus is on the thousands of displaced citizens and their well being. I completely agree, but special attention should and must be given to the nuclear reactors in Japan if a catastrophe is to be avoided.