President Biden ordered the construction of a temporary pier off Gaza despite concerns from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) that the project would undermine efforts to pressure Israel to allow more aid into the Strip via land crossings, USAID’s Inspector General said in a report on Tuesday.
The report said multiple USAID officials had “expressed concerns” that the focus on the pier “would detract from the Agency’s advocacy for opening land crossings, which were seen as more efficient and proven methods of transporting aid into Gaza.”
When President Biden first ordered the construction of the pier during his March State of the Union address, aid groups called the move a public relations stunt. They pointed out that it’s far more efficient to deliver aid through land crossings, the majority of which Israel has kept closed to aid.
The Pentagon was also aware that using the pier in the Eastern Mediterranean would be difficult due to weather conditions. The report said the Pentagon’s guideline for the pier “stated its usage was weather-dependent and that it could not operate in conditions beyond what is known as sea state 3, or short and moderate waves. However, the Mediterranean Sea is often at sea state 4 with significant winds and waves.”
Weather knocked the pier out of service several times during its short-lived use off the coast of Gaza. The pier operated only for 20 days and delivered a fraction of the aid that USAID said it was meant to due to seas and the lack of a real plan to make deliveries.
“Due to structural damage caused by rough weather and high seas, the pier operated for only 20 days and was decommissioned on July 17. Additionally, security and access challenges plagued aid distributions once on shore,” the report reads. “As a result, USAID fell short of its goal of supplying aid to 500,000 or more Palestinians each month for three months and instead delivered enough aid to feed 450,000 for one month.”
The report said the failed project cost $230 million. At one point, rough seas broke apart the pier, which cost at least $22 million to repair.
The project also risked escalating US involvement in the genocidal war in Gaza since US troops operating right off the coast could have become targets for Hamas rockets. Secretary of Defense had acknowledged the risk of US troops coming under attack and said they would have the authority to shoot back into Gaza.
It was a trojan horse for attack according to multiple witnesses. Why even humor the pentagon’s “we’re innocent, we warned them it wouldn’t hold up” bullshit?
Or it was precisely because they knew it would not function in order to securely undermine aid delivery to assist the Israeli in creating famine. It's brilliant in a way, writing off old and useless defence stock material, while assisting in genocide, under the false pretense to deliver aid, which garbage the press would just chew up, all guaranteed to work and all that for a mere 200 something million or so.
Yes, it performed as intended -maintaining the blockage of the land-based aid crossings. And not unlikely the plan came direct from TelAviv.
It is just not possible to be cynical enough with either the US or Israel. Whoever came up with the plan, it is in any case pure evil and nothing short of and it wouldn't absolve the US in any way if they acted on Israel's orders. It is something way beyond criminal.
It is on par with the campaign against UNWRA, which was uncritically also taken over by Western and European countries. It is of an unspeakably inhuman cruel atrocious maliciousness for which there is no other word than evil.
Yes, allowing for scale, in its way more shocking an epiphany than Nam.
But according to witnesses it helped secrete Israeli and possible US commandos, who pretended to be an aid group, who then went on to slaughter Palestinians at a market.
Here is one report. It must have been on x, but I did not save the link:
Afshin Rattansi @afshinrattansi
How the Nuseirat Massacre unfolded:
Israel used the US-built 'humanitarian pier' to sneak in a unit of Israeli soldiers, and reportedly American soldiers.
The soldiers boarded a humanitarian aid truck and drove to Nuseirat refugee camp.
Once inside, they were discovered by Palestinians, which resulted in nonstop Israeli aerial bombardment and the soldiers opening fire inside the central market killing over 210 Palestinians and injuring hundreds
The 'humanitarian pier' gets exposed to be an occupation, assassination, and massacre pier.
The Americans cannot be trusted under any circumstances. A humanitarian pier built under the guise of helping hungry and starving Palestinians, was actually used to massacre them.
Every day the US' colonial barbarism gets revealed to be more and more horrific.
I’m not sure about tanks or the dates, but here is another:
A young boy from Al-Nuseirat explains that the soldiers who raided his family home, extinguished a cigarette on his neck, and killed his 12 year old brother were not Israeli military.
"They were American Special Forces. Those who attacked us in our home were not Israeli forces. They were American. Biden, the guy who talks about humanitarian aid and who built the pier, is bringing tanks through the pier. And the person who killed my brother is one of them. From Biden's army."
https://www.threads.net/@sfarcoast/post/C8FC4g_RnFf
I rather think that the Pentagram's goal was to get either Hamas or the IDF to destroy the thing so they could get it off the books. It was contracted for in 2003 from a company in Wisconsin, and delivered in 2007. As far as I can tell it was used exactly once before, for a war game in Honduras in 2013. The rest of the time it has sat in storage. Amusingly the harbor where it was built frequently has waves of more than three feet, so they knew before it was delivered that it was junk.
"I rather think that the Pentagram's goal was to get either Hamas or the IDF to destroy the thing so they could get it off the books" That is not how Pentagon works. If a system is obsolete or fails to meet specifications they junk it.
Well, it didn’t meet either of those criteria, it was just useless and taking up space in one of the harbors (San Diego, I think).
Is anyone surprised? The pier never was intended to provide aid.
The lack of comprehension of virtually everyone about what is going on and who is behind it is the biggest effect of this genocide that even exceeds the genocide. It reveals a basic human inability to comprehend even the most obvious reality.
I'm preparing a Substack to address this. Stay tuned.
Anyone watched the video clip when they landed on the pier with the Imperial March (Darth Vader's Theme) playing in the background? …Tears came to my eyes, when I remembered the destruction of the "IMPERIAL DEATH STAR."
And when they are listing Biden's "accomplishments" as president, the pier will be one of them.
I'd have to think the US Marine Corps has a significant fleet of amphibious landing craft (modern descendants of the D-Day ones) that would have worked (would STILL work) much better to deliver aid to the shores.
MAGA retconnists will be quick to point out that if TRUMP were in the White House, he'd have built a BIGGER and BETTER pier & gotten the "Pier 1" company to pay for it.
A total waste of taxpayer dollars as are most Pentagon projects. Gaza burns while Biden fiddles.
Yet another abject FAILURE of this catastrophic democrat regime. Can you imagine another FOUR YEARS of this under "Momala" Harris?
Better than convicted felon Trump.
They may have been hoping that the Pier would become a target for Hamas and that any US casualties could be used as a pretext for US "Boots on the ground" in Gaza. It is highly doubtful that the Biden-Harris regime actually wanted to do anything to help the starving Gazans.
And that was actually the purpose.