Maybe not.
It lasted 12 days. It was attacked with a mortar barrage by the people it was intended to help. At least one US serviceman was injured during the attack.
It detached from the shore during a seasonal storm and the weather deposited the pier on the Israeli shoreline. Maybe mooring cables were damaged in the attack? Maybe it was enthusiasm over-running competence and good construction practices.
Maybe it was the Hand of God.
Information is not free
A fact that is rarely given enough consideration is that "information" comes with a cost. There are lessons to be found in that $320M. Is that information worth more than $320M?
Lesson One: There are enough Palestinians in Gaza who will perversely go out of their way to bite the hand that feeds them. That should be a crystal-clear signal that "helping them" or allowing them into our own country is an incredibly stupid proposition.
Lesson Two: Whoever is in control of the US Federal Government is more concerned about "optics, sound-bites and photo-ops" than in actually helping people.
Lesson Three: If/when we find ourselves in direct, military conflict with Russia, China or any other near-peer adversary, we better kick the current micro-managers into a soundproof room and let the adults drive the bus. The current men-behind-the-curtain are bedazzled by ideas and have proven incapable of seeing reality.
You can draw your own conclusions about the political side of things. Nothing I write about THAT will change anybody's mind.
I don't think the $320M was wasted if we harvest the information created by the misadventure and incorporate that information into future decisions. I do, however, deeply regret the spilling of American blood. That makes it expensive.
Note: Reports of the mortar attack have mostly been scrubbed from search engine results or pushed down to page three. Here is one account that is still find-able.
I share your contrarian take, for all the reasons you mentioned, but there's yet another possibility:
ReplyDeletehttps://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2024/05/ruminate-sil-vous-plait.html
Hello Aesop:
DeleteThanks for dropping in and reading. Double thanks for commenting.
Excellent post!
I feel like I got a Gold Star at the top of my paper.
I really do love these exercises and don't mean to be insulting, but it's a tell...
ReplyDeleteYou see this in the blogosphere everywhere these days.
Measuring "Success" or "Failure" requires defining a goal or two, yes?
"The pier was built to deliver supplies" is the official story. And it was a success while it was in operation, so I agree with our host that the lessons learned (e.g. better mooring) will be rewarded the second time one is installed.
But that therein is the problem.... People believe the cover story. In a vacuum, building a rube goldberg solution like this makes sense, because those poor starving people. Except.. that's not the truth of the boots on the ground. Yes, people are starving, but the same people are launching mortars at the people delivering the food to them. They're not innocent refugee's, not by a long shot! Likewise, the pier wasn't constructed to deliver food and aid. That's a cover story.
What people in this country are hopelessly lost in, is a paradigm where government is benevolent and people are honest. And invariably when things don't work out they are shocked at the results. Yet if you adjust your paradigm to one where the government has been taken over by marxists who want total control through cloward-pliven driven manufactured crises, you'll be able to predict that the US military is going to ship those psychopathic arab's from Gaza over here and re-settle them in the US.
I agree with you Joe. However I think that you are overly optimistic as to Lesson 3 . Reality in every regard seems to be beyond our social grasp. ---ken
ReplyDeleteA python might stop squeezing a moment, but the fate of its prey is sealed unless outside forces drive off the python.
ReplyDeleteAmerica is the prey, you can deduce who or what is the python, but who is the known world has any desire to drive off the python? AKA for history buffs remember that FRANCE used our little rebellion as a proxy war to weaken France's foe England. Lafeyette we are here ring a bell?
BTW History buffs MIGHT NOTICE that funding the American Revolution *might* have been what fueled the FRENCH Revolution and the madness of Madame Guillotine and the rise of the "Strong Man" Napolean.
I'm open to facts and links to any rebellion that restored a country WITHOUT Major outside support.
Aside perhaps the American debacle of fighting the Taliban for decades to leave it in the hands of the (Trumpets blowing here) Taliban.
Protect your TRUSTED family and TRUSTED friends. More valued than gold and silver when things get weirder (and they will friend no matter if Trump survives the attacks and gets "elected" or not)
In a greater depression the "Winners" are those that can protect, shelter and feed their trusted friends and family.
So, Que Bono who benefits from the shipping in of more expensive troublemakers into once middle-class strong America?
Then you might know the python.
Most people think of French supporting the American Revolution - but Spain also did by taking then British Florida and giving Britain another blow to their North American colonies.
DeleteI don't think that funding the US revolution has a significant effect on the French Revolution. If you look into it, they were structurally unbalanced with (proportionally) the largest aristocracy in Europe and major problems well before our revolution. At the beginning of the century, Britain was on the same course but the Great Awakening made a huge difference, as did their smaller and more restrained aristocracy, plus the beginning of the industrial revolution.
Jonathan
Johnathan are you Aware that Napoloic France fought a little war with America over unpaid debt we didn't pay because of the change in government when the royalty was deposed?
DeleteYes, war is Expensive and Frances extra debts supporting our revolution was part of the destabilizing of France.
The French Revolution excesses were often discussed by our founding fathers and why they were so Against "mob rule " as they described democracy.
Michael
Questions, Joe: how sure are we that the Palies were the attackers? The Israelis have lied through their teeth at us too. We’ve seen them murder women and children in cold blood just as the Palies have done, and lied about it later.
ReplyDeleteWhy was the attack “scrubbed from the internet”?
Who has the power and means to “scrub the internet”?
Why was it scrubbed?
Mis- and disinformation are costly too…
Nothing is sure in war.
DeleteI think there is a lot more downside for Israel running that kind of false-flag operation than upside.
It is easier for me to believe that the Hamas organization has very sloppy discipline and some genius (not) on their side thought it would be brilliant and would give him street-cred to drop mortar rounds on the Americans.
With regard to scrubbing the internet, pulling a number out of the air, there are probably 600 people working for Google (alone) who can make history disappear. Then throw in all of the incells running trot-lines filled with bots that can float non-stories to the top. Do you remember the fake Google page that some college student floated to the top of the search "French Military Victories". The fake page read "No entries found. Did you mean French Military Defeats? 1,987,654,321,987,654 entries found."
...Pretty soon you are looking at over 10,000 possible actors.
I better just let that one pass, Joe. I fear there is a red pill with your name on it in all this… but you’ll take it when it’s right for you.
DeleteFor future reference, though… when you see people acting irrationally like this - just flipping out for no apparent reason - that is a give away that something else is in play. When people start scapegoating innocent victims as pure as the driven snow… it’s a good idea to very carefully establish their innocence and claims of victimhood. You need to question all your assumptions and info.
But whadda I know?
I can tell you that I've worked the Med offshore operations and it's prone to some quite severe squalls and heavy wind-driven waves. The flexi-floats used by the US are not a good fit in storm conditions, and any kind of mooring system has to allow for storm-induced movements. I've used flexi-float modular barge units, but never offshore - always on rivers, where the currents are predictable and manageable, and winds are not a factor. Offshore, we stuck with individual barges and a push-tug to shuffle them as needed to bring them under the cranes for loading / offloading. That's what they should have done here, IMO, or use LCTs (landing craft transports), which are very common conveyances in the third world, where piers are not always available. Instead, they decided to build a long floating pier, which worked fine until the squalls came, as they always do.
ReplyDeleteAnon is correct, wrong type, improperly moored, doomed to failure. It was a political 'sop' to the left, and a costly exercise in futility.
ReplyDelete