Biden’s Gaza Floating Port Plan Generating Concern Among Military Professionals
“I don’t know a single maritime professional who thinks this is a good idea given the location and conditions ashore, but orders are orders.”
During President Biden’s State of the Union address, the President stated that he was directing the military to set up a temporary pier in Gaza that would enable supply of humanitarian aid the the Palestinians. We had predicted that he would say that: Biden to Announce Plans to Build Port in Gaza for Humanitarian Aid Shipments:
President Joe Biden will announce during his State of the Union address plans to build a port on Gaza’s coast to help with humanitarian aid.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the announcement, said the operation will not require that American troops be on the ground to build the pier that is intended to allow more shipments of food, medicine and other essential items.
Apparently, the building has already started:
Details: Aid will arrive at the temporary port via Cyprus, U.S. officials said in a briefing with reporters ahead of the State of the Union.
- The U.S. military will establish a temporary pier in the sea off the Gaza coast with a causeway that will allow trucks to bring aid to shore. National Security Council chief of staff Curtis Ried will head up the effort from the U.S. side.
- U.S. soldiers will take part in the construction, but from U.S. Navy vessels offshore. “The current plan doesn’t include any U.S. boots on the ground in Gaza,” a senior U.S. official said.
We were not impressed when the news of this plan were released:
Absolutely, Israel doesn't want or need this. Biden refuses to let Israel win. American troops are being inserted into the conflict so Biden can win the Michigan pro-Hamas vote. https://t.co/vXBzhnA8mz
— William A. Jacobson (@wajacobson) March 7, 2024
And we weren’t the only ones:
Well look here. US forces will be exposed to attacks from Hamas—unless of course Team Biden produces the bounty of fuel, food and materiel that they expect. As Obama once said of Biden, "Don't underestimate Joe's ability to fuck things up." https://t.co/nh3jer50DE
— Gary Weiss (@gary_weiss) March 7, 2024
So the U.S. military is literally building infrastructure for Hamas—which is formally designated a terrorist group by that very same U.S. military/State Dept.
Evil. https://t.co/2eSACc9p0C
— Josh Hammer (@josh_hammer) March 7, 2024
And now, guru of all things military but especially sea-borne, Commander Salamander, has weighed in, and it’s not pretty:
So, a Pier for Hamas it is…you’re paying for it – you might as well get briefed on it:
A lot of people spent the weekend scratching their heads over this;
The U.S. military will build a temporary port on Gaza’s Mediterranean coast to receive humanitarian aid by sea, President Joe Biden said in his State of the Union speech on Thursday.
Planning for the operation, initially based on the island of Cyprus, does not envision deployment of U.S. military personnel in Gaza.
Biden’s announcement came as he seeks to cool anger among many in his Democratic Party over his support for Israel in its offensive in Gaza since Oct. 7, given the steep toll on civilians in the Palestinian enclave.
Ships are already underway;
The U.S. Army has dispatched a ship to send humanitarian aid to Gaza, Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Sunday, days after President Joe Biden vowed to build a temporary pier to supply the besieged enclave.
The General Frank S. Besson left Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia “less than 36 hours after President Biden announced the U.S. would provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza by sea,” CENTCOM said in a statement.
It will take a few weeks to make the transit from Virginia to the eastern Mediterranean. The 37-year old Besson can’t even break 12-knots fully loaded.
…and yes my friends – the Army has its own navy.
CENTCOM’s X post on the Besson’s deployment:
On March 9, 2024, U.S. Army Vessel (USAV) General Frank S. Besson (LSV-1) from the 7th Transportation Brigade (Expeditionary), 3rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command, XVIII Airborne Corps, departed Joint Base Langley-Eustis en route to the Eastern Mediterranean less than 36 hours… pic.twitter.com/X70uttuY9J
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 10, 2024
Back to Salamander:
Yep’r, that 243 foot, 4,200 ton ship is commanded by … a Warrant Officer. Discuss amongst yourselves….
This will take about 1,000 personnel to accomplish. I don’t know a single maritime professional who thinks this is a good idea given the location and conditions ashore, but orders are orders. Make the best attempt you can.
An interesting note; this is not a Navy operation, but an Army operation….
As for my general thought on doing this? I’ll avoid the politics as much as I can, but I have concerns.
Generally speaking, no operation starts out on the right foot with a lie.
“We’re not planning for this to be an operation that would require U.S. boots on the ground,” said a senior administration official.
I’m not mad at the official. They are just making sure their statement is in line with higher direction and guidance. President Biden was clear in his SOTU speech;
The United States has been leading international efforts to get more humanitarian assistance into Gaza. Tonight, I’m directing the U.S. military to lead an emergency mission to establish a temporary pier in the Mediterranean on the coast of Gaza that can receive large shipments carrying food, water, medicine, and temporary shelters.
No U.S. boots will be on the ground.
You cannot build a pier, even JLOTS [Joint Logistics Over the Shore], without putting boots on the ground…
Did no one brief the President or those who approved the speech…?
I feel real sorry for the Operational Planners.
- In an area thick with poorly controlled hostile forces with everything from snipers to ATGM [anti-tank guided missiles], how do you work this force protection problem?
- What are your ROE [Rules of Engagement] if you take fire? What if you are confronted with a wave of people wanting refuge on the ship? What if ship’s company goes missing ashore?
- This is at the far end of the Mediterranean…in spring. Storm season is past, so hopefully the weather will cooperate.
I almost made this post about what a bad idea this was, but the die is cast and all we can do now is trust that those tasked with planning will do the best they can with what they’ve been provided, and those who have to execute the mission are both good and lucky. Such activities, from Lebanon to Libya, do not turn out all that well in this part of the world. A lot can and will happen in the weeks it will take to get there, so perhaps fate will help.
[emphasis added]
This situation is especially worrying given that the Biden Administration has quietly sent home the U.S. Marine Amphibious Ready Group that had been deployed to the area:
While the plan is still coming together, it appears that in the short term, it won’t involve Navy ships that specialize in humanitarian relief missions.
Three amphibious ships with hundreds of Marines aboard left the Mediterranean this week to head home, wrapping up an extended eight-month deployment that cut across the Persian Gulf and Eastern Mediterranean.
The ships of the USS Bataan Amphibious Ready Group will not immediately be replaced in the Middle East due to a litany of mechanical issues suffered by the USS Boxer, which is still preparing for a future deployment in San Diego despite earlier plans to go to sea in November.
While the Boxer’s sailors and Marines are trained to perform humanitarian missions, they remain in the U.S. “because the Marines couldn’t get a ride,” a Defense Department official said.
Others are unimpressed in the extreme with Biden’s Gaza pier idea:
This sounds an awful lot Like deploying troops to Gaza.
Do you think it will only be humanitarian aid shipped to this “temporary military pier” off the coast of Gaza?
He assures us that doesn’t mean boots on the ground, which means it will be boots on the ground. pic.twitter.com/6MHq3xtZp2
— Santa Cruz Mountain Goat (@SCMountainGoat) March 8, 2024
The Gaza pier optics are particularly bizarre. Biden is helpless to stop millions of illegals but he's building piers in terrorist-held territory 7,000 miles away. What?
— Noah Pollak (@NoahPollak) March 8, 2024
Joe somehow agreed to the floating pier in Gaza so he could get boots on the ground. He is not to be trusted. If he says there will be no boots on the ground, just know he is a liar.
— 🪖💫Tony🇺🇸🇺🇸🔔💔🗳🎖 🇺🇸🇺🇸🔥⭐️ (@3Tony48) March 11, 2024
So our military is going to build a pier in Gaza that doesn’t connect to land. Got it. https://t.co/GQEw0OntVg
— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) March 8, 2024
Even the Palestinian side is critical:
You know you have a balless president when building a fucking pier is easier than asking Netanyahu to let aid trucks into Gaza
— Gerald Celente (@geraldcelente) March 9, 2024
#genocideJoe to announce U.S. military will construct a floating pier off the Gaza Strip to let ships deliver tons of food and other aid. Fuck you. Stop the murder.
— Stanley Cohen (@StanleyCohenLaw) March 7, 2024
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Comments
Biden has ordered all personnel working on the pier to work in 9 inch stilettos to increase their height for safety and so he can stick to his promise of no boots on the ground (or in the sand).
There are unconfirmed rumors that they will be wearing Fuzzy Slippers.
“I don’t know a single maritime professional who thinks this is a good idea given the location and conditions ashore…”
Biden. Joe Biden? The same who abandoned 13 US military members to die, and gifted $60 billion worth of military hardware to the Afghanistan Taliban after the most feffed up military withdraw in US history?
And now our sons n daughters are gonna die in yet another forever war on behalf of Gaza. Stolen elections have consequences.
This is how the war in Vietnam started. After the French debacle we sent over some aid in various ways, conducted by the CIA and their “Air America” operation. At first it was just basic aid, then manpower in the form of “advisors”. Once some of those advisors had been killed then we had the excuse to send over weapons, troops and air power. And we all know how many lives that mess took. Will this be charade beany different?
>>And now our sons n daughters are gonna die in yet another forever war on behalf of Gaza.
If it comes to war then make sure the first ones to go over are the ones now protesting in support of the arab terrorists in Gaza. I’m more than sure they’d be willing to go over there to fight in support of Hamas, right? Right?!??
Can’t finish our border
Can’t protect our cites
Can’t protect American citizens, our precious girls
FU a$$hole
But somehow manages to squander hundreds of billions of dollars on protecting the Ukraine’s borders and supplying Hamas.
This would be funny if the consequences weren’t so dire for everyone outside of the DC Democrat bubble.
Do boys not deserve protection? Are they not precious as well?
Agreed on the remainder of your post.
B- Biggest
I – Idiot
D- Democrats
E- Ever
N- Nominated
L – Let’s
G – Get
B – Biden
T – To
Q – Quit
I am not a maritime professional but a USAF retiree who thinks this is not a good idea given the location and conditions ashore. It hails right at the top of the stupid list of military operations.
It sets up a situation just like the Kabul Airport where the solders were killed by Biden’s stupidity. Wither it will happen again or there will be a mob fired on while attacking a ship and they will play the victims as usual.
I’m so proud of my tinfoil hat, to learn it’s not just channeling Internet conspiracy theories anymore, but is compiling the consensus opinion of American maritime professionals!
So what happens when the IDF shows up at the dry end of the pier to inspect the arriving goods to prevent sneaking in munitions and materials harmful to the IDF mission? Will US assets be used to retain control of the operations? Will IDF consider the dry end another portion of border to be closed?
Asking for several friends…
It’s the plan
They’ll be human shields to protect Hamas from the IDF, just as intended. Maybe even a casus belli if that fits Biden’s handlers’ plans.
Said in irony, but quite probably true for whatever weak value ‘plan’ has in this circumstance. I suspect the logic chain goes like this:
–If Israel gets done before the pier starts construction, it’s a moot point, and can be quietly pulled up and the US forces slip away. Win.
–If/when soldiers are killed by Hamas during the construction, it lets the Dems wave the bloody shirt for votes. Win.
–If/when the pier is attacked during construction by Hamas, the Dems can blame Israel, wave the bloody shirt, and use it as either an excuse to bail out on this disaster or double-down. Either way, votes and Win.
–If it gets built, Hamas will attack it and break it. Millions of dollars will be burned in the process, mostly in bribes to Hamas to not break it too quickly, of which a certain percentage will be returned to the DNC. Win.
In other words, this is a prop designed to get Dem votes and get US soldiers killed in the process. That’s their plan. Not one box of goods needs to be brought in for it to be a success for the Dems.
“–If/when soldiers are killed by Hamas during the construction, it lets the Dems wave the bloody shirt for votes. Win.”
Huh? If that were logical, Democrats would be running for office on the immigration issue with ads featuring “after” photos of “Lincoln” Riley.
Who is going to be driving the trucks to offload the vessels? Americans? Palestinians? Hamas plants?
What happens when Hamas shows up at the dry end of the pier to commandeer the arriving goods for their own purposes – and probably by force?
I kind of always expected they would, being the “elected government” of Gaza. Why would anyone rational expect anything different?
Only humanitarian aid will come ashore and the US will prevent military shipments from using it….. right…. sure… of course. Biden is shoring up his Muslim faction with this.
Oh, this one’s easy. They won’t be wearing boots. For an operation in a flooded area, obviously the correct footwear is pumps…
And Rachel Levine is eminently qualified to lead the operation.
Flipflops or crocs?
No, you silly, pumps. For the water, of course.
Very nice!
My cousin in Maine had a vast collection of F-me pumps she collected during salmon spawning seasons.
Hey, Biden is trying to get votes of the woke antisemitic left. It’s a vital U.S. interest.
Under what authorities, exactly, does Traitor Joe have the power to do this? This is not a military operation so how does Traitor Joe get to treat the US military as his personal workforce of go-fers and campaign workers to obey his whims and his personal desires?
It is a military operation, because the military is doing it. That’s the only definition of one. And as the military’s commander in chief, he gets to decide, in his sole discretion, what military operations are in the national interest.
LOL. Okay. Circular argument for the win!!
That’s not how it works. You cannot have the military hand out welfare checks and call it a military operation. Language has an actual meaning … which is the whole basis of this newfangled “Rule of Law” thing.
Yes, you can, actually. If the commander in chief decides that is something the military should do, then he can order it to do so, unless there is a law specifically forbidding it.
He can’t order the military (other than the coast guard) to enforce the laws (with certain exceptions) because the Posse Comitatus Act says so; before that Act was passed it was perfectly lawful for him to do so, and if Congress were to repeal it it would once again be lawful. There’s nothing in the constitution that prevents him.
Devil’s advocate. We are still operating under the AUMF re to the GWOT. So we are technically at war with global terrorism.
1. Hamas is terrorist organization.
2. The USA is at ‘war’ with terrorism
Thus a rational person might conclude that the USA is in a state of war with Hamas, especially after they killed and kidnapped US Citizens.
Treason is a crime defined as providing ‘aid and comfort’ to the enemy. You admit that Hamas will receive this aid. Thus Biden is providing ‘aid and comfort’ to the ‘enemy’ which is treason and therefore a crime.
Not exactly legally sound but it is a logical argument and one can understand how folks get bent out shape under this logic.
And that is what has become the model of governance. It is no longer “what is the government charged with doing”; it has become “what is the government not expressly prohibited from doing.” Obama brought that model to the forefront in his 2008 campaign, and subsequently applied it to his Presidency. Our entire system has since adopted that model.
Laws were predominantly written in the spirit of a reasonable people who would be under the law. They were never written for explicit circumscription of all possible human activity under it. Indeed, a couple millennia of legislatures attempting to circumscribe human activities shows the futility of such an endeavor. But that’s what has become our government model: am I expressly prohibited from doing this? It completely undoes the very concept of limited government.
No. Treason is defined as waging war on the USA, or as adhering the enemy, giving him aid and comfort. The adherence is the key element, and the aid and comfort is merely a way in which that adherence is manifested. It’s clear law that sheltering an actual literal enemy spy, in war time, feeding him, giving him money, finding him a job and a car, etc., for a reason other than adherence to the enemy, is not treason. That would apply here.
Also, quite apart from that, it would be required to actually give the enemy that aid and comfort, not merely to do something stupid and reckless of which any idiot could predict that the enemy would be likely take advantage.
That has always been the case. Governments, as a general rule, can do anything they’re not specifically forbidden.
The US congress, not the states, is an exception to that rule, in that it has been granted only a limited list of powers, and can’t do anything outside that list. This isn’t very useful, because it’s become adept at fitting almost anything it wants to do under one or another of those powers, but at least that principle is there and it does need to justify what it does by claiming that it fits under this power or that one. States don’t need to do that because they have a general police power; only the USA doesn’t have one. Foreign governments also have general police powers.
And the president, when it comes to the US armed forces, has the equivalent power; the constitution has put him in charge of the forces, and given him the sole power to decide what they ought to do. Thus he can order them to do anything he thinks is appropriate, so long as it isn’t against an actual law.
As far as a Warrant Officer being in command of the ship, that is probably a good thing. As a retired WO1 I can tell you that WO’s generally know their stuff. The alternative would be something along the lines of a butter bar, with a map, a compass, and a deadline.
What is going to be the tragic comedy moment is when Hamas blows the thing up themselves. Just hope not to many troops get hurt.
Come on mate. You and I both know that when that happens Israel will be blamed.
Have you met Hamas? They will be proud of it because they will have struck a blow against The Great Satan and The Little Satan.
The left will continue to blame Israel, but it’s not like that’s a change.
I think the point is not that a senior WO can’t get the ship there or do whatever is technically required. It’s that you are sending technician, with probably no training or experience for dealing with the complex political/military/diplomatic situation. That will require a higher ranking commissioned officer, staff, and protection. That’s how the footprint, level of involvement and risks grow and grow.
Yes, and the WO is most likely the commander of the ship and will not be involved in the “project”.
But your point is valid, it will take more than can fit on that ship to actually make this happen.
Aiding and abetting terrorism sure sounds like gallows worthy behavior.
This doesn’t directly aid or abet terrorism, nor is its purpose to benefit the terrorists. The fact that they are very likely to benefit from it anyway, and that any fool can see that, doesn’t make it a crime.
It certainly does.
Says who? Traitor Joe? The guy who is orchestrating an invasion of America and his junta of Maoists and Leninists and Trotskyites and all manner of America-hater?
No, it doesn’t. Nothing is being given to the terrorists. The aid is entirely for the civilian population.
Says every honest person, which clearly does not include you. The purpose is completely obvious and above board: to mitigate a humanitarian disaster. That the terrorists will inevitably benefit is merely collateral damage — in exactly the same way that civilian deaths from Israeli bombing is merely collateral damage, and not at all Israel’s intent.
This proposal is stupid, reckless, a terrible idea even by this administration’s standards, but a crime it is not.
You’re really that stupid? Combatants will get first choice of the food and medical supplies. Hamas benefits when they show Gazans suffering, even if they caused the suffering.
You’re the one who’s clearly stupid and incapable of reading. That the terrorists will surely benefit from this is irrelevant, and it takes a special kind of stupidity not to see that.
Yes, they will benefit, but that is not the purpose for which the aid is being provided. It’s merely an inevitable outcome, just as killing civilians is the inevitable outcome of bombing enemy targets in an urban environment. When Israel kills however many civilians it has killed (and no one knows the actual number, since Hamas’s reported numbers are just made up), it is not committing a war crime because those deaths were not the purpose of the bombing, and the risk to the civilians was not disproportionate to the military importance of the target. In exactly the same way, providing aid to civilians, even in the knowledge that terrorists will inevitably benefit, is not giving terrorists material support. And it’s certainly not treason, which requires adherence to the enemy.
It’s not committing a war crime because there is no such thing. In war, there are only winners and losers and all the losers are “war criminals” for which the winner decides what shall ultimately be done with them.
The “enemy” population. They are overwhelming supporters of Hamas and the attack on Israel.
We are so lucky that people like you were shamed out of the public in WWII. You would have been crying your eyes out for the poor Japanese and German “civilians” who were correctly firebombed and nuked to death wholesale – which is why WWII ended up being the most successful war ever fought and why we have not won a war since then (as people like you declared all the successful and important tactics to be the fanciful “war crimes” (which is a completely delusional concept to begin with).
As a matter of law, that is simply false. War crimes exist, as all the people convicted of them by their own side can attest.
Yes, they are, but that does not make them terrorists, and it does not make them the enemy. Israel has repeatedly and loudly announced since the beginning that its war is against Hamas and not against the population; therefore that is so. The aid is specifically intended for them and not for Hamas. That Hamas will inevitably benefit is mere collateral damage.
So Joe’s decided to run with the “I’m too addled to convict” ploy?
“Only the stupid can’t see how this will turn out,” says Milhouse.
Joe pumps his fists in the air.
I think the odds are more than trivial some Americans get killed, which would be a political disaster. Perhaps Biden is counting on the IDF finishing off Gaza in the many weeks to get this going?
Can Israel complete its operations in Rafah before the pier is complete? Probably!
Israel can if it gets going there, but despite what Netanyahu says, I think they’re reluctant to do it during Ramadan..
One reason for this hare-brained pier scheme that’s not mentioned is that it gives Biden a good excuse to demand a ceasefire now that his blathering incompetence has led Hamas to believe it doesn’t need to negotiate anymore. Biden’s plan was for a temporary ceasefire to get some hostages then to make the ceasefire permanent. The pier gives him another way to force Israel to stop fighting without cutting arms, or using the UN. Then he’ll attempt to extend any pause in fighting indefinitely, on the excuse that otherwise American lives will be at risk.
This brings back bad memories. I was with the Amphibious Group supporting the 24th MAU at Beirut in 1983. I remember how that came out. We were sitting ducks in the middle of a war zone, a civil war with multiple factions. And here we go again.
I thought Joe Biden had all this fantastic experience? Apparently the only thing he has experience with is ice cream.
Yeah this operation is reminiscent of Lebanon. I maintain that this is the epitome of the ‘goat f%$k’.
And money laundering.
Did this pier idea get the necessary environmental impact approval?
They can’t do anything in the region without sending in archeologists for a salvage dig first.
Every time the government wants something built – be it wind / solar farms, a favored industry structure, even Trump’s border wall, you name it – the first thing they do is waive the environmental regulations surrounding it.
When disaster strikes, as it surely will, team Old Joe will blame – wait for it – Trump and Republicans.
Americans going to be sitting ducks for islamo-lunatics. Biden afghan debacle version 2.0.
On the plus side, the pier is going to be made using hollow metal poles so they can be torn up quickly and used for rocket casings.
This smells like leaving the Marines in Lebanon in 1982 as sitting ducks-with the blame to be assesed against Israel
The detestable Biden (Prez Send Cash Now c/o the Big Guy) and his repulsive Party of America-hating leftists will get American military killed in Gaza. But for the most part these military patriots are children of The Deplorables in flyover country, so in the minds of leftists their deaths are no big loss.
But do the Democrats understand that? I think a lot of them still imagine that US combat troops are largely blacks and poor people who joined for the economic opportunity.
The biggest problem is that our personnel will be sitting ducks for any attack by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or any free-lancer with a home-made missile. But an equally great stupidity on the part of Biden is that he apparently thinks aiding the Gazan civilians will appease the pro-Palestinian voters in the U.S. It won’t, because what they want him to do is to hurt Israel, not to help Palestinian civilians. He is risking American lives to appease demonstrators who could only be appeased—if at all—if he acted to destroy the only U.S. ally in the Middle East. As with Hamas, that is all they really care about.
Funny, isn’t it, that Biden & Co. have not bothered to demand Egypt open more aid routes through Egypt’s territory. Or how the activists around the world never talk about how deadly it is for Gazans to try to evacuate through Egypt. Or why all the displaced “refugees” in Gaza are not transported out to safer environs, as happens with every other oppressed peoples around the globe.
This whole operation has nothing to do with sympathy nor aid for Gazans. It’s all for political advantage.
Why would any American think we should risk one American for Hamas and the Muslims who support them? Wealth Muslims must have paid Quisling Joe a huge bribe to save Hamas!
No, he doesn’t need to be bribed. This is who he is. More stupid and ignorant than malicious, but the result is the same.
They wanna get aid into Gaza, maybe build a port off the Sinai coast — under less fire, one assumes. The Egyptians, Turks, Iran’s, Red Crescent, and assorted UN agencies can offload and deliver the stuff with their own hands.
They can use Israeli recommissioned tunnels for distribution, inspection checkpoints at entrance and exit. Hey, if the distro network can carry rockets and machinery, sacks of food should fit for sure.