Here’s a shocker: A federal government response to a legitimate problem isn’t working.
Gee, I hope you were sitting down for that. I shouldn’t have sprung such surprising information on you without warning like that. I apologize.
In this particular case of results not living up to the government’s intentions, the temporary pier system installed by the U.S. military and Israel Defense Forces off of the Gaza Strip to allow delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians in the embattled region has been damaged by bad weather.
Don’t worry, though — the Pentagon says it shouldn’t take much more than a week to effect repairs.
No one is arguing that starving innocent civilians shouldn’t receive food and medical assistance, even in a war zone — although one could, of course, argue about how “innocent” the civilian population of Gaza is overall, having voted Gaza into power in the region in 2006, or how much of the aid actually manages to get into the hands of those innocents.
Still, there were plenty who didn’t vote for Hamas. And, of course, many of those affected by the violence were children when those votes occurred — or are children now.
In other words, there’s a legitimate need for humanitarian support in Gaza, as even the most pro-Israel among us (and I would consider myself among that group) aren’t interested in victory through starving infants.
And, as usual, where there’s a legitimate need, there’s a federal government effort failing to meet it.
The Trident Pier had only been operational for about two weeks, according to NBC News, when bad weather — who could have predicted that a pier would have to stand up to bad weather? — rendered it useless.
Was the Gaza pier a bad idea?
“Unfortunately, we had a perfect storm of high sea states,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said at a news conference.
“On Saturday, May 25th, four U.S. Army vessels supporting the maritime humanitarian aid mission in Gaza were affected by heavy sea states, causing these motorized pier sections, which are used to stabilize the Trident Pier, to break free from their anchors due to a loss in power and subsequently beach ashore,” she told the assembled reporters.
“In addition, due to high sea states and the North African weather system, earlier today, a portion of the Trident Pier separated from the pier that is currently anchored into the coast of Gaza,” she added. “As a result, the Trident Pier was damaged and sections of the pier need rebuilding and repairing.”
She said that about 1,000 metric tons of aid had been delivered over the pier while it remained operational.
The Pentagon told NBC that the pier is “supposed to be able to deliver up to 150 trucks’ worth of aid every day” — that’s assuming, of course, that it’s not floating about the Mediterranean in pieces, which is apparently not a safe assumption.
Presumably, then something like 1200 trucks’ worth of aid — whatever that amounts to — will not be delivered over the next week-plus as the Trident Pier is repaired and moved back into place.
All that is in addition to the two American service members who sustained minor injuries working on the pier last week, and the one who remains hospitalized in Israel in critical condition.
Yes, things seem to be going swimmingly — so to speak — with the Biden administration’s efforts to feed starving children in Gaza. I’m sure the wing of the Democratic Party that strongly supports Hamas in its war against Israel is pleased as punch, or will be once they get over the shock of yet another failed federal government initiative.
Again, sorry about springing that on you earlier. I’ll try to do better next time.
