The Biden Bad Idea Fairy continues to work overtime.
Why is the concept of a Gaza Pier not a viable option? This needs an acronym. How about GMAFB for Gaza’s Moronic Army Floating Base?
(Seriously, there are better way to do this, the problem is the DoD divested most of the equipment and the Navy hates asking industry for help)
First, Gaza is a flat strip of coast with no protected harbors or coves. Thus means that any ‘pier’ would be completely open to the elements and seas.
Second, there are two ports just a few miles away. Ashdod in Israel is a large port and could handle the cargo, but it would require transport and delivery through Israeli territory. Al Arish in Egypt is smaller but protected by a breakwater and only a few miles from Gaza and avoids having to traverse Israeli territory. If the US wants to deliver aid over the beach, this would be akin to a Joint Logistics Over the Shore operations (JLOTS). This lighterage system is on prepositioning ships in the Indian and Pacific oceans or would need to be transported from the US. Lighterage would have to take the cargo from ships at anchor, meaning the ships would need to be self-sustaining (mount the cranes).
Another option would be to activate one of the ESDs to serve as a floating pier, but you would need lighterage of LCACs to shuttle cargo.We can do the Vietnam War model and build piers, which were barges with Jack-up legs, connected to shore by barges.
There were built in Cam Rahn and Da Nang, but these were protected harbors and the US had done this a few years earlier in the Arctic.Of course, the best group out there right now building piers and ports in China, as recently demonstrated with a new pier in Djibouti and base in Cambodia.The delivery of food aid and relief to Gaza is crucial.
However, it would have been better to undertake this effort in conjunction with Op Prosperity Guardian against the #Houthi, vice months later.
It could have undercut the Houthi effort while rounding out the US operation.
I don’t know what better sums up the modern American progressive establishment than this: Apologizing to the murderer, for calling him an illegal immigrant rather than “undocumented” with no thought of apologizing to the girl who was murdered for getting her actual name wrong.
Stupid–The fact they’re illegal immigrants means they literally could not have been here to build this country.
Progressive Democrats who try to tell you that it’s important to support Biden even though he’s committing a genocide because he might do some nice things for Americans domestically are actually giving you a useful insight into exactly what’s so evil about western liberalism.
These following words were written in the 1930’s and in our times today, with Joe Biden in the white house, they have come true, in spades:
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people.”
“On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
― H.L. Mencken, On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe
Joe Biden is a real class act, alright:
President Biden’s State of the Union Address
THE PRESIDENT: (The President holds up a pin reading “Say Her Name, Laken Riley.”) Lanken — Lanken [Laken] Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed.
THE PRESIDENT: By an illegal.
That’s right.
But how many of thousands of people are being killed by legals?
end quotes
As he bends over backwards to defend his beloved illegals he is allowing into this country as future DEMOCRATS, the fool didn’t even bother or make an attempt to get Laken Riley’s name right when he had it right in front of him.
CCM: The Biden Bad Idea Fairy continues to work overtime.
Why is the concept of a Gaza Pier not a viable option?
This needs an acronym.
How about GMAFB for Gaza’s Moronic Army Floating Base?
ME: SNABU – Situation Normal, All Bidened Up!
As to this pier, The Hill has an informative article about it in more detail titled “Biden’s Gaza pier: Another Abbey Gate in the making?” by Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet, who served 30 years as a military intelligence officer, and Mark Toth, who writes on national security and foreign policy on March 14, 2024, where we learn more about another SHORT-SIGHTED BIDEN BOONDOGGLE in the making, to wit:
During President Biden’s State of the Union address last Thursday, he announced, “I’m directing the U.S. military to lead an emergency mission to establish a temporary pier in the Mediterranean on the Gaza coast.”
Intended to accommodate large vessels carrying food, water, medicine and tents, the pier would be constructed without U.S. “boots on the ground,” he added.
Constructing and securing the pier will be a considerable undertaking, with or without U.S. boots on the ground.
Although well-intentioned from a humanitarian standpoint, the pier is likely to create more problems than solutions.
Biden’s decision therefore looks like a political response to garner votes from Muslim and progressive voters in Michigan and Minnesota, not an answer to problems in the region.
The pier will also present a new target for Iranian-backed proxies in Gaza and the West Bank, including Hamas, Palestine Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah.
The pier will have to be defended from mortar, rocket, aerial drone and unmanned surface vehicle attacks.
And some nation or coalition force will have to secure it from a multitude of threats.
It will also need to be protected from desperate, displaced Palestinians gathering at the distribution points on a daily basis — possibly even attempting to storm the pier when ships dock.
The crowds will likely become Hamas targets as well, creating the same target-rich environment that a suicide bomber took advantage of at Kabul Airport’s Abbey Gate in Afghanistan in August 2021, killing 13 American service members and 170 Afghans.
Carving out a safe zone in a combat zone is not a good strategy.
Humanitarian convoys entering the strip are often hijacked by Hamas or attacked and looted by desperate Palestinians.
Chaos ensued at a food distribution point in Gaza City on March 1, when IDF soldiers allegedly shot into crowds as desperate Palestinians surged forward when aid trucks arrived.
The following day, an Egyptian truck driver was killed and his aid truck looted by a violent mob on Al-Rashid Street in Gaza.
Distribution of humanitarian aid is still the issue.
The mode of transportation that delivers the aid is secondary.
Putting more Americans at risk is not the solution.
Can we really trust employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to ensure the aid does not end up in the hands of Hamas?
Who is going to vet the employees?
Who will ensure that aid gets to the displaced Palestinians instead of the Hamas terrorists?
Who will ultimately be responsible for the operation?
In January, Israeli officials presented evidence they said tied UNRWA workers in Gaza to violence during the Hamas-led attack on Israel.
Hundreds more were found to have close associations with Hamas.
As a result, the UN terminated nine out of its 12 UNRWA staff over the allegations and vowed to hold its employees accountable.
Is this really the best course of action, or simply a reaction for the sake of appearing to do something?
The U.S. already struggles to provide adequate force protection for its own remote military bases throughout the region, which have sustained more than 170 attacks since Oct. 17.
The deadliest of those attacks was directed at Tower 22 in Jordan, which resulted in the deaths of three U.S. service members.
Nonetheless the wheels are already in motion to create this new vulnerability.
The U.S. Army Vessel General Frank S. Besson departed Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia, on Mar. 9 for the Eastern Mediterranean, carrying the equipment necessary to build the temporary pier.
end quotes
And here we come to one more of Joe BIDEN’s GREAT BIG LIES, to wit:
Despite the President’s assurance that no U.S. boots will be on the ground, American service members will be directly involved in the construction and security of the pier.
Building the aircraft while in flight is generally a bad technique, especially with all the bad actors intent on killing Americans and harming Gazans.
Security is essential, and for now, not locked in.
According to Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon’s press secretary, it will take “over 1,000 U.S. forces to participate in building” the temporary pier. “
As far as the timeframe … “several weeks, likely up to 60 days in order to deploy the forces and construct the causeway and the pier.”
That sounds a lot like “boots on the ground,” doesn’t it?
end quotes
So, if there are no boots on the ground, what are all those troops doing – walking on water?
And if there are no boots on the ground, then how exactly will this pier be moored to the ground where the aid must go?
Who will build the road to the pier?
Hamas?
If we go back to the story, that is exactly what seems to be the case, to wit:
As former U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Gordon S. Sullivan has said, “Hope is not a method.”
Hoping Hamas does not target the pier is a dereliction of duty.
But that is exactly what Ryder tried to sell reporters on March 8, when he said, “If Hamas truly believes that the people, the Palestinian people are suffering, then why would they want to take this aid and use it for themselves to support their terrorist organization?”
“Or do they truly care about the Palestinian people and want this aid to get to them?”
“So, one would hope that this aid will get to the people that are most deserving and in need.”
Neither the General nor the White House seem to know this enemy.
They would do well to brush up on the sage advice of Sun Tzu in “The Art of War”: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”
“If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.”
“If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
They apparently have not learned a thing from interactions with the Taliban since 2021, nor from the actions of Hamas since Oct. 7.
If they had, they would understand that there can be no more Abbey Gates.
Yet here we likely are, witnessing one in the making.
STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES!