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Originally posted by Beancooker:
My biggest question is why are we building a pier to give aid to a terrorist organization, that is the sworn enemy of our only ally in the area?

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Originally posted by parabellum:
Let's start a restaurant called The Gaza Pier. The food is those shitty generic humanitarian aid MREs and six rolls of toilet paper. Your table is attached to the edge of a pool and at random intervals, detaches from the pool, drifts to the middle of the pool and sinks partially. Then, the waiter comes along and steals your purse or wallet and calls you a genocide-supporting racist.

Then, your check comes and it's a bill from the Federal government for 680 million dollars and when you try to leave a Yelp review, the FBI raids your home at 6:15 on a Sunday morning.

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Originally posted by HRK:

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Originally posted by parabellum:
Let's start a restaurant called The Gaza Pier. The food is those shitty . . .

Don't forget to tip your waiter, select your preference on the machine, 20%, 25%, 30%, Other

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Originally posted by Johnny 3eagles:
Seems to me, this administration will just leave it there for the terrorists to use as the see fit.

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Originally posted by Johnny 3eagles:
Seems to me, this administration will just leave it there for the terrorists to use as the see fit.

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Originally posted by Johnny 3eagles:
Seems to me, this administration will just leave it there for the terrorists to use as the see fit.

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Originally posted by corsair:

The pull-out in Niger is going on simultaneously, all the improvements that were made for two SOF/drone-bases will be turned-over to a Russia/Iran-friendly rebel group. New airstrip, hangers, buildings with AC, electrical network, fuel storage, water filtration, etc....

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Originally posted by corsair:

quote:

Originally posted by Johnny 3eagles:
Seems to me, this administration will just leave it there for the terrorists to use as the see fit.

I wouldn't be surprised if they either piece it out and leave it.

Given the amount of gear and equipment left behind in prior conflict zones, we'll be packing up all the forklifts, jacks, power tools and warping tugs but, leave the pier, off-shore platform and anchoring components.

The pull-out in Niger is going on simultaneously, all the improvements that were made for two SOF/drone-bases will be turned-over to a Russia/Iran-friendly rebel group. New airstrip, hangers, buildings with AC, electrical network, fuel storage, water filtration, etc....

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Foxnews.com: Biden's $230 million Gaza pier quietly shuts down, US senator labels project 'national embarrassment'~

The project has faced numerous hurdles during construction and deployment

By Peter Aitken , Liz Friden Fox News
Published July 18, 2024 1:11pm EDT


The U.S. military has started shutting down operation of the hugely expensive and troublesome pier into the Gaza Strip, citing difficulties with distribution as a key factor in the decision.

"This chapter might be over in President Biden’s mind, but the national embarrassment that this project has caused is not. The only miracle is that this doomed-from-the-start operation did not cost any American lives," Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said in a statement issued after the project's closure. "I have been calling for an end to this election-year gimmick since its primetime inception at the State of the Union."

"While I am glad it has finally concluded, we cannot buy back the $230 million needlessly spent, and significant questions remain about the Biden administration’s poor planning for this mission," Wicker stressed.

President Biden, during his State of the Union speech in March, pledged to establish a temporary pier in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of the Gaza Strip to increase the delivery of humanitarian aid to the territory as millions remain displaced while Israel continues to hunt Hamas.

The Pentagon announced that the completion of the piers – one that would remain several miles offshore while the other acted as a causeway onto the Gazan shore – were completed around May 9 but faced difficulty during deployment over the following week.

The Pentagon estimated the cost of the pier's construction at roughly $230 million, with many congressional members publicly criticizing the effort: Wicker previously told Reuters that the operation had proved to be a "dangerous effort with marginal benefit."

Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., told Fox News Digital in an interview in May that the project was "unnecessarily putting our people in harm's way. It's costing a lot. It's pulling assets that should be used elsewhere, and I just don't think it's going to accomplish anything near what he's promised."

The U.N. halted distribution from the pier in the first weeks of June, citing the need for a "thorough assessment of the security situation … to ensure the safety of our staff and our partners."

"The maritime storage mission involving the pier is complete, so there's no more need to use the pier, particularly because, we're able to implement a more sustaining pathway, to Ashdod," Deputy Commander of U.S. Central Command Vice Admiral Brad Cooper told reporters in an off-camera/on-record briefing Wednesday.

Sonali Korde, Assistant to the Administrator of USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, added, "The key challenge we have right now in Gaza is around the insecurity and lawlessness that is hampering the distribution once aid gets into Gaza, into the crossing points."

Now, the pier project appears to have run its course, and humanitarian aid will be delivered through a maritime corridor in Cyprus to Ashdod before going into Gaza – a fully civilian-run operation.

Cooper explained, "In the past few weeks, we've begun utilizing this new hybrid pathway from the sea and land to deliver aid from Cyprus to the port of Israel, then into north Gaza via the U.N. and WFP. And it's been successful."

"Israel has been fully supportive of this effort, and in the last several weeks, we've successfully delivered more than 1 million pounds of aid into Gaza via this route," Cooper added.

The White House referred all questions to press gaggles and conferences happening today, during which Deputy State Spox Vedant Patel defended the decision to pursue the pier project and claimed that the operation ultimately proved successful.

"We believe that this effort was successful, and, specifically, because the peer and its existence and the work that happened through it impacted aid delivery to northern Gaza," Patel said. "It successfully delivered millions of pounds of aid to the people who need it. Nearly 19 million, as I mentioned, and its use helped, overall, the increased flow of aid and alleviate conditions in northern Gaza."

"Not at all to say that the situation is resolved or conclusive or anything like that, but overall, it was an effort that we believe was successful," he added.