Sunday, 20 March 2011
Cameron says British forces are in action over Libya
British forces are in action over Libya, Prime Minister David Cameron has said.
A British submarine has fired a number of Tomahawk missiles at Libyan air defence targets, the Ministry of Defence added.Mr Cameron said the action was "legal, necessary and right" and he praised the British forces involved as "the bravest of the brave".
France, US, Canada and Italy are also involved in the military action.
US officials said it was a "carefully coordinated" joint operation known as Odyssey Dawn.
French planes destroyed Libyan vehicles earlier on Saturday, and US media say the US has fired missiles at Libya from a warship.
'Appalling brutality' Defence sources told the BBC Britain had launched a number of missiles from Trafalgar class submarines in the Mediterranean, aimed at Libyan air defence targets including radar and surface-to-air missile weapons.
Libyan state TV reported that what it called the "crusader enemy" had bombed civilian areas of Tripoli, as well as fuel storage tanks supplying the western city of Misrata.
After hosting a meeting of the government's emergency management committee Cobra in Downing Street, Mr Cameron said: "British forces are in action over Libya. They are part of an international coalition to enforce the will of the United Nations.
"We have all seen the appalling brutality meted out by Col Gaddafi against his own people."
It was a "just cause" and in "Britain's best interests", he added.
British and US submarines fired 110 Tomahawks in total at Libyan targets.
The Chief of Defence Staff's strategic communications officer Maj Gen John Lorimer said: "This is the first stage. UK and partner forces remain engaged in ongoing operations as we seek to ensure that Col Gaddafi and his forces understand that the international community will not stand by and watch them kill civilians."
@'BBC'
U.S. Missiles Strike Libyan Air Defense Targets
American and European forces began a broad campaign of strikes against the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi on Saturday, unleashing warplanes and missiles in the first round of the largest international military intervention in the Arab world since the invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon said.
Pentagon and NATO officials detailed a mission designed to impose a United Nations-sanctioned no-fly zone and keep Mr. Qaddafi from using airpower against beleaguered rebel forces in the east. While the overall effort was portrayed as mostly being led by France and Britain, the Pentagon said that American forces dominated an effort to knock out Libya’s air-defense systems.
In a briefing Saturday afternoon, Vice Adm. William Gortney told reporters that about 110 Tomahawk missiles, fired from American warships and submarines and one British submarine struck 20 air-defense targets around Tripoli, the capital, and the western city of Misurata. He said the strikes were against longer-range air defense missiles as well as early warning radar sites and main command-and-control communication centers.
President Obama, speaking during a visit to Brazil, reiterated promises that no American ground forces would be used. “I am deeply aware of the risks of any military action, no matter what limits we place on it,” he said. “I want the American people to know that the use of force is not our first choice, and it’s not a choice that I make lightly. But we can’t stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy.”
The campaign began soon after the close of a summit meeting in Paris, where leaders, reacting to news that Mr. Qaddafi’s forces were attacking the rebel capital city of Benghazi with artillery and ground troops despite international demands for a cease-fire, said they had no choice but to act to defend Libyan civilians and opposition forces.
“Our assessment is that the aggressive actions by Qaddafi forces continue in many places around the country,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said after the meeting in Paris concluded. “We saw it over the last 24 hours, and we’ve seen no real effort on the part of the Qaddafi forces to abide by a cease-fire despite the rhetoric.”
In Benghazi, a rebel fighter, speaking over the phone, described a procession of tanks as well as rooftop snipers fighting for pro-Qaddafi forces in the west of the city. And a steady stream of vehicles, some bearing rebel flags, was seen pouring out of Benghazi toward the rebel-held city of Bayda, where crowds were cheering the news that French airplanes were flying over the area. That news came even before the Paris summit meeting adjourned, with President Nicolas Sarkozy announcing that French warplanes had begun reconnaissance missions around Benghazi, and the French military saying that a Rafale jet fighter had destroyed a government tank near there.
Even though the leaders at the Paris summit meeting were united in supporting military action, there were signs of disagreement over how it would proceed...
Pentagon and NATO officials detailed a mission designed to impose a United Nations-sanctioned no-fly zone and keep Mr. Qaddafi from using airpower against beleaguered rebel forces in the east. While the overall effort was portrayed as mostly being led by France and Britain, the Pentagon said that American forces dominated an effort to knock out Libya’s air-defense systems.
In a briefing Saturday afternoon, Vice Adm. William Gortney told reporters that about 110 Tomahawk missiles, fired from American warships and submarines and one British submarine struck 20 air-defense targets around Tripoli, the capital, and the western city of Misurata. He said the strikes were against longer-range air defense missiles as well as early warning radar sites and main command-and-control communication centers.
President Obama, speaking during a visit to Brazil, reiterated promises that no American ground forces would be used. “I am deeply aware of the risks of any military action, no matter what limits we place on it,” he said. “I want the American people to know that the use of force is not our first choice, and it’s not a choice that I make lightly. But we can’t stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy.”
The campaign began soon after the close of a summit meeting in Paris, where leaders, reacting to news that Mr. Qaddafi’s forces were attacking the rebel capital city of Benghazi with artillery and ground troops despite international demands for a cease-fire, said they had no choice but to act to defend Libyan civilians and opposition forces.
“Our assessment is that the aggressive actions by Qaddafi forces continue in many places around the country,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said after the meeting in Paris concluded. “We saw it over the last 24 hours, and we’ve seen no real effort on the part of the Qaddafi forces to abide by a cease-fire despite the rhetoric.”
In Benghazi, a rebel fighter, speaking over the phone, described a procession of tanks as well as rooftop snipers fighting for pro-Qaddafi forces in the west of the city. And a steady stream of vehicles, some bearing rebel flags, was seen pouring out of Benghazi toward the rebel-held city of Bayda, where crowds were cheering the news that French airplanes were flying over the area. That news came even before the Paris summit meeting adjourned, with President Nicolas Sarkozy announcing that French warplanes had begun reconnaissance missions around Benghazi, and the French military saying that a Rafale jet fighter had destroyed a government tank near there.
Even though the leaders at the Paris summit meeting were united in supporting military action, there were signs of disagreement over how it would proceed...
Continue reading
Saturday, 19 March 2011
Reuters Reuters Top News
FLASH: Fighter plane shot down in eastern Libyan rebel stronghold of Benghazi - Reuters witness
One of Gaddafi`s the rebel's jets shot down at Benghazi (Confusion still as to whose jet it is)
AJELive AJELive
History of Libya 1912-1969
A beautiful short documentary highlighting the key historical events that occurred in Libya between 1912 and 1969. This got me quite emotional as I saw a budding young Libya in its early spring, blossoming and reaching out to the world, and then suddenly it was cloaked in darkness…
Via
Via
Michel Houellebecq vs. William Burroughs (Quotes)
Oil on Canvas: “William S. Burroughs 3″
Christiaan Tonnis (1999)
Michel Houellebecq — the misanthropic, caninophilic French novelist — and William Burroughs both deploy thorough visions of the world. They proffer more or less elaborate cosmologies, ethics, and particularly critical assessments of humanity. And both view the act of writing in general, and their own writing in particular, as an active force doing some kind of battle, performing some kind of negotiation, with the powers of stupidity, evil, greed, and banality. Both understand the human universe as being at the mercy of non-human laws — for Houellebecq, it’s all species, biology, physics; for Burroughs, it’s biology, physics, magic.
But whereas Houellebecq sees a world of absolute bleakness, Burroughs sees a world of plenitude — filled with shit and bile and semen and stupidity and cruelty but full nonetheless. If Houellebecq offers a world heading to zero, Burroughs offers a world of infinite complexity.
On Society
Houellebecq
I don’t like this world. I definitely do not like it. The society in which I live disgusts me; advertising sickens me; computers make me puke.
Burroughs
America is not so much a nightmare as a non-dream. The American non-dream is precisely a move to wipe the dream out of existence. The dream is a spontaneous happening and therefore dangerous to a control system set up by the non-dreamers.
The Future of Humanity
Houellebecq
Few beings have ever been so impregnated, pierced to the core, by the conviction of the absolute futility of human aspiration. The universe is nothing but a furtive arrangement of elementary particles. A figure in transition toward chaos. That is what will finally prevail. The human race will disappear. Other races in turn will appear and disappear. And human actions are as free and as stripped of meaning as the unfettered movements of the elementary particles. Good, evil, morality, sentiments? Pure ‘Victorian fictions.’ All that exists is egotism. Cold, intact, and radiant.
Burroughs
Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole.
Youth and Dreams
Houellebecq
Adolescence is not only an important period in life, but that it is the only period where one may speak of life in the full sense of the word.
Burroughs
As a young child I wanted to be a writer because writers were rich and famous. They lounged around Singapore and Rangoon smoking opium in a yellow pongee silk suit. They sniffed cocaine in Mayfair and they penetrated forbidden swamps with a faithful native boy and lived in the native quarter of Tangier smoking hashish and languidly caressing a pet gazelle.
Influence
Houellebecq
I’ve lived so little that I tend to imagine I’m not going to die; it seems improbable that human existence can be reduced to so little; one imagines, in spite of oneself, that sooner or later something is bound to happen. A big mistake. A life can just as well be both empty and short. The days slip by indifferently, leaving neither trace nor memory; and then all of a sudden they stop.
Burroughs
I am not one of those weak-spirited, sappy Americans who want to be liked by all the people around them. I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it. My affections, being concentrated over a few people, are not spread all over Hell in a vile attempt to placate sulky, worthless shits.
Sex
Houellebecq
But whereas Houellebecq sees a world of absolute bleakness, Burroughs sees a world of plenitude — filled with shit and bile and semen and stupidity and cruelty but full nonetheless. If Houellebecq offers a world heading to zero, Burroughs offers a world of infinite complexity.
On Society
Houellebecq
I don’t like this world. I definitely do not like it. The society in which I live disgusts me; advertising sickens me; computers make me puke.
Burroughs
America is not so much a nightmare as a non-dream. The American non-dream is precisely a move to wipe the dream out of existence. The dream is a spontaneous happening and therefore dangerous to a control system set up by the non-dreamers.
The Future of Humanity
Houellebecq
Few beings have ever been so impregnated, pierced to the core, by the conviction of the absolute futility of human aspiration. The universe is nothing but a furtive arrangement of elementary particles. A figure in transition toward chaos. That is what will finally prevail. The human race will disappear. Other races in turn will appear and disappear. And human actions are as free and as stripped of meaning as the unfettered movements of the elementary particles. Good, evil, morality, sentiments? Pure ‘Victorian fictions.’ All that exists is egotism. Cold, intact, and radiant.
Burroughs
Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole.
Youth and Dreams
Houellebecq
Adolescence is not only an important period in life, but that it is the only period where one may speak of life in the full sense of the word.
Burroughs
As a young child I wanted to be a writer because writers were rich and famous. They lounged around Singapore and Rangoon smoking opium in a yellow pongee silk suit. They sniffed cocaine in Mayfair and they penetrated forbidden swamps with a faithful native boy and lived in the native quarter of Tangier smoking hashish and languidly caressing a pet gazelle.
Influence
Houellebecq
I’ve lived so little that I tend to imagine I’m not going to die; it seems improbable that human existence can be reduced to so little; one imagines, in spite of oneself, that sooner or later something is bound to happen. A big mistake. A life can just as well be both empty and short. The days slip by indifferently, leaving neither trace nor memory; and then all of a sudden they stop.
Burroughs
I am not one of those weak-spirited, sappy Americans who want to be liked by all the people around them. I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it. My affections, being concentrated over a few people, are not spread all over Hell in a vile attempt to placate sulky, worthless shits.
Sex
Houellebecq
In a perfectly liberal sexual system, some people have an exciting erotic life; others are reduced to masturbation and solitude.
Burroughs
There is nothing more provocative than minding your own business.
Love
Houellebecq
Love binds, and it binds forever. Good binds while evil unravels. Separation is another word for evil; it is also another word for deceit.
Burroughs
Love? What is it? Most natural painkiller. What there is. LOVE.
Burroughs
There is nothing more provocative than minding your own business.
Love
Houellebecq
Love binds, and it binds forever. Good binds while evil unravels. Separation is another word for evil; it is also another word for deceit.
Burroughs
Love? What is it? Most natural painkiller. What there is. LOVE.
Daniel Coffeen @'Thought Catalog'
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
