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El_guapazo ,

Fell apart or was sabotaged?

I would think they work fine everywhere else and defended vigorously. This story sounds like a half truth.

We need more transparency about why it failed.

givesomefucks OP ,

Yeah man, I was in the Navy on a LHD, shit comes with helicopters and even an amphibious landing craft, and the US pretty much always has one in the area.

There was never a single need for the dock, it was always a stalling tactic.

Like, there is just no valid reason the US ever needs a fucking dock to get equipment/supplies onto the shore.

For fucks sake, we were “air dropping” aid out of airplanes from bomb height like care packages in Call of Duty…

We could have been sitting it down directly into a controlled forward operating base and letting the aid be distributed like civilized people into whoever shows up with weapons first gets all of it.

Nothing about any of this has made sense if Biden actually wanted to help and not just make it look like he was helping.

The US military is not this incompetent

Milk_Sheikh ,

The dock was always about being seen to help resolve the humanitarian crisis, but not actually get anyone linked to US policy inanywayshapeorform involved directly on the ground in Gaza.

Like others have said, if the US/Egypt/Arab nations actually wanted to solve the famine? Aid convoy with military escort. “We’re gonna help these people, try and stop us” and let the IDF fafo. Hamas may not play along, but they have and are coordinating with aid agencies all the time for convoys.

nonailsleft ,

What orders would you give to these soldiers in case they were approached by a large mob, some of them armed?

givesomefucks OP ,

Have you been on US military foreign aid missions before?

It’s not a new thing, we do it all the fucking time.

Why do you think Palestinians are going to behave like a fucking hoard of zombies?

That’s carries some pretty racist connotations…

They can handle queuing up for aid especially if it’s being handed out systematically and not dropped from thousands of feet to starving masses.

Like, just not waiting 7 months into this genocide would have made things more orderly.

nonailsleft ,

I’d advise you to take a look at the drone footage from the crowd swarming the aid trucks that led to that massacre west of Gaza City a while ago

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/09/middleeast/gaza-food-aid-convoy-deaths-eyewitness-intl-investigation-cmd/index.html

So, are you going to let them fire into the crowd or not?

givesomefucks OP ,

Like, just not waiting 7 months into this genocide would have made things more orderly.

Also, read articles before you link them…

Jihad Abu Watfa was standing in the rubble along a dark stretch of coastal road southwest of Gaza City when he saw Israeli military tanks approaching. He began recording on his phone just as a heavy barrage of gunfire flashed before his eyes.

“We are now under siege, a tank is beside us and it’s shelling,” Abu Watfa could be heard saying in the video, which he shared with CNN.

The 27-year-old was surrounded by hundreds of other Palestinians who had gathered for an aid delivery on February 29 when Israeli soldiers accompanying the humanitarian convoy opened fire. More than 100 people were killed and 700 injured, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

The IDF opening fire is what caused the death…

Any issues before the first shot was because the people who were committing the genocide against those people who were waiting for aid were pointing fucking tanks at them…

How do you not understand how people would be on fucking edge?

nonailsleft ,

Do you think these people are less on edge today?

givesomefucks OP ,

Are they still in danger of being murdered by genocidal far right extremists?

Yes.

Would they be less afraid if Biden did the right thing and provided aid and the assurance of safety at least while it was distributed?

Also yes.

This ain’t complicated, but you keep “just asking questions”…

I’m starting to think that none of this has any chance of being productive.

ShepherdPie ,

You mean like when they do military parades just about anywhere in the US?

penquin ,

They wouldn’t need this pier if, you know, we stopped funding Israel to continue this genocide.

givesomefucks OP ,

But Biden will literally never do that…

He’s spent 50 years saying he would never hold them accountable for anything if it means even slowing aid down.

Hell, when Obama was prez and Biden was just the VP. biden publicly shit talked Obama when he threatened to cut aid to Israel due to their human rights abuses.

Biden made a big deal about how the only thing that works with Israel is giving them everything they want and holding them accountable would backfire.

Obama was smart enough to not listen, and Israel toned it down.

Joe learned absolutely nothing from that. Or worse, has always known it’s bullshit and still does.

I really thought in 2020 I was done playing “is the president honestly this stupid or lying?”

But it looks like we’ll keep playing till 2028 at least

penquin ,

He’s always supported Israel. Forever.

Carrolade ,

Closing border points and instituting a blockade of food is fairly inexpensive, they could and probably would continue to do that without our bombs and shells.

EasternLettuce ,

deleted_by_author

    •
    Carrolade , (edited )

    Yeah, you hear that conspiracy theory crap a lot. “Shadowy string pulling” instead of getting into the nitty gritty details of the specific treaties Congress made back in the day that aren’t so easy to wiggle out of.

    Money lets you put pressure, but it does not give you mind control powers, or any kind of medieval fealty.

    edit: Hell, medieval fealty wasn’t even that reliable, as any perusal through European history will give lots of examples of a King’s subjects fucking off.

    retrospectology ,
    @retrospectology@lemmy.world avatar

    Intentional waste of time and money. Complicity at its most craven. It’s unforgivable.

    A coalition of countries needs to drive aid trucks with armed escort into Gaza. Dare Israel to fucking kill some of their “allies” soldiers instead of shooting children and women who are running away or sleeping.

    HurlingDurling ,
    @HurlingDurling@lemmy.world avatar

    Agree, but it would be nice if at least one of those is a NATO member country

    nonailsleft ,

    Egypt won’t let them through

    retrospectology ,
    @retrospectology@lemmy.world avatar

    No, it’s Israel that has been closing the crossings.

    nonailsleft ,

    Are you saying Egyptian officials or reporters are blatantly lying? Can you give a source for your claim?

    https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/food-bound-gaza-rots-sun-egypts-rafah-crossing-stays-shut-2024-05-24/

    https://nan.media/en/egypt-closes-rafah-crossing-after-israeli-army-took-control-of-it-from-the-palestinian-side/

    retrospectology , (edited )
    @retrospectology@lemmy.world avatar

    Israel has been the one consistently slowing or completely stopping aid since the beginning. This is not a question, Egypt is not the problem here.

    Since Israel seized control of the Gazan side of the Rafah crossing on May 7, aid has been blocked, with supplies piling up in Egypt and the Strip teetering close to famine.

    [CNN]

    Fighting and bombardment continued on the outskirts of the southern Gaza city of Rafah as Israel said the key Kerem Shalom crossing had reopened for aid. […] The US said that while the crossing was open again, aid could not get through “because of logistical and security concerns” on the ground.

    The UN had expressed alarm on Tuesday over what it called Israel’s “choking-off” of Gaza’s two main aid arteries, after Israeli troops took full control of the Palestinian side of the nearby Rafah crossing with Egypt.

    [BBC]

    This has been Israel’s story since this latest stage of the genocide began back after Oct. 7. They stop tents getting through because “tent poles can be used as weapons”.

    And just in case people have forgotten, this is what Gaza looks like. You’re trying to tell me that it’s the Egyptians who are blocking aid? Israel is supposedly this great ally to the West, why are they not letting the needed aid through any of the other three borders they control completely? Having to go through Egypt or build a fucking entire port would indicate that Israel is entirely uncooperative with western aid efforts. Air dropping aid is the kind of thing we’ve done historically when there is enemy territory preventing us driving it in by land.

    Zionists need to understand that there is no hiding what Israel has been doing to Palestinians any longer, the old deflections simply do not work. The genie is out of the bottle.

    nonailsleft ,

    This is not a question, Egypt is not the problem here

    Did you see that picture of Egypt putting down concrete blocks to block their side of the Rafah crossing

    Did you read the statements from Egyptian officials that they’re keeping the crossing shut, hoping this pressures Israel to retreat?

    FlyingSquid , (edited )
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    When I said “why the fuck didn’t ‘oceans could be rough’ come up as a possibility to them” yesterday, I got a bunch of people defending the U.S. military over this.

    I’m curious if the defenders will come back into this thread.

    Edit: It’s been 10 hours, so I’m guessing the answer is no.

    bluGill ,

    The US military should know this. They should be able to build piers like this while under active fire. This is one of the things we need for a world war style invasion (think WWII d-day)

    FlyingSquid ,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    That’s what I said. I was told things like “they wanted to do this fast, so they had to do it this way” and “this was only meant to be temporary.”

    bluGill ,

    Both are invalid - sure it needs to be fast - which is why they should practice this. Temporary means they plan to pick it up after practice. They should do yearly drills in different parts of the world (obviously with permission of the host country) just to prove they can.

    FlyingSquid ,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    There’s literally no reason I can think of to build a pier in the ocean without a strong storms contingency plan.

    bluGill ,

    Exactly. Either you can tear it down before the storm hits (good weather prediction needed) then rebuild it fast afterwards; or you build it to withstand storms. I guess there is the just scrap it after every storm - but then you need to rebuild it fast and cheap which this wasn't.

    ShepherdPie ,

    “Fast” means apparently taking months to build a floating platform.

    givesomefucks OP ,

    We wasted months not giving them aid to build this pier…

    It cost 320 million dollars, and lasted a fucking week.

    And Palestinians are still starving to death.

    I legitimately don’t know if it being such a giant waste of time and money was intentional.

    With the shit Biden openly says, it’s hard to believe there’s not worse shit he’s managing not to say. If not, isn’t saying whatever horrible pro genocide shit that pops into your head one of the reasons trump is bad?

    trump is obviously worse, but running a campaign on that makes a genocide ok won’t get a Dem in office.

    alcoholicorn ,

    I legitimately don’t know if it being such a giant waste of time and money was intentional.

    If the purpose was to bring aid to the Palestinians, they’d just open the border crossing.

    Rather, everything we see is consistent trying to create the appearance of doing something to help, but making sure you don’t actually affect the famine.

    givesomefucks OP ,

    everything we see is consistent trying to create the appearance of doing something to help, but making sure you don’t

    That’s the most we get these days. With pretty much any topic.

    At most we get some breadcrumbs for optics right before elections, but never any real work towards real solutions.

    It’s why not paying attention and just voting “blue no matter who” should never be a plan except for one election in a blue moon where something crazy just happened.

    This is Trump’s 3rd election now, if the DNC can’t find a good candidate that can beat Trump and give Dem voters what we want, then we need new people running the DNC.

    If the DNC won’t change, we need a whole ass new party.

    Going along with this bullshit isn’t helping anyone.

    The absence of evil isn’t good. It’s just the absence of evil.

    We need politicians actually willing to do good things. Hell, it’s not even “absence of evil” the good guys are funding genocides these days.

    It’s just “slightly less evil”.

    alcoholicorn ,

    if the DNC can’t find a good candidate that can beat Trump

    Hell if they don’t just tell Biden what he needs to do to win. They must be collecting data that tells them how wildly unpopular Biden’s actions are among the people they need to vote.

    snooggums ,
    @snooggums@midwest.social avatar

    At most we get some breadcrumbs for optics right before elections, but never any real work towards real solutions.

    It’s why not paying attention and just voting “blue no matter who” should never be a plan except for one election in a blue moon where something crazy just happened.

    I’m voting blue no matter who because I am paying attention to Republicans trying to burn the country to the ground. I’ll take half assed non-improvement over malicious self destruction, thanks.

    Milk_Sheikh ,

    May your self righteousness sit easy with your soul, while the right clicks each ratchet of the Overton window.

    Voting ‘blue no matter who’ empowers that action - both with and without of your party.

    ShepherdPie ,

    Then you’re just incentivizing Dems to keep the status quo and never actually change anything for the better. This also ensures the Republican party will still exist forever since they’re the only alternative for someone who wants to vote but not for Democrats.

    Zos_Kia ,
    @Zos_Kia@lemmynsfw.com avatar

    While I definitely agree with your general sentiment, how do you contend with the 66% of voters who think Israel is justified in this war, and the nearly 40% who think the way it is waged is acceptable? Wouldn’t the electoral risk be even more dire if you alienate them?

    I’m not asking that rhetorically, I think it’s a genuinely hard problem.

    givesomefucks OP ,

    how do you contend with the 66% of voters who think Israel is justified in this war,

    My initial opinion is that 66% is about half republicans, leaving 16% of Biden voters feeling that he’s doing the right thing…

    Can you link the survey you’re referencing?

    Zos_Kia ,
    @Zos_Kia@lemmynsfw.com avatar

    You’re right, i didn’t have the breakdown by party and didn’t realize the size of the difference. I would have thought that establishment democrats would be more strongly in favour. Wholly agree with your comment then.

    (i don’t have the link right now but if i remember to look for it on my phone i’ll edit it here later. It was from a run of the mill polling institute, i don’t remember which)

    bobburger ,

    I found this article about a NPR poll which has a breakdown of support for Israel by age group and party affiliation.

    I'm not sure exactly where Biden's position on the Gaza invasion falls on this poll, but it seems closest to "Support Israels right to defend itself while encouraging a cease fire". Biden definitely isn't withholding all support, and he definitely isn't fully supporting the military actions against Hamas.

    About 33% of Democrats and 27% independents think the US should suspend aid to Israel until there is a cease fire.

    Similarly 38% of gen z/millennials think there should be a cease fire until there is a suspension of aid. This is the smallest voting cohort at about 36% of the population according to Wikipedia, and also the least likely to vote historically. Perhaps voter turn out would be higher among this group if we had a different candidate, but no one is going to cater their political platform to a group that had never reliably voted, especially if doing so costs them votes among reliable voters.

    Among Gen X and older less that 19% support a stopping aid until a cease fire happens. This is the largest and most likely to vote voting cohort.

    Also noted in the article, Biden has a 15 point lead over Trump among baby boomers who have very little support for a ceasefire.

    givesomefucks OP ,

    Support Israels right to defend itself while encouraging a cease fire”.

    That wording is all you should need to hear to disregard the poll…

    Literally no one is saying Israel can’t defend itself.

    And it’s not what Israel has been doing the last 7 months.

    bobburger ,

    That wording is all you should need to hear to disregard the poll...

    That's a pretty extraordinary assumption to make.

    Regardless of how you feel about that option there is little support among voters for withholding support for Israel until a ceasefire is reached. Less than 25% among all respondents, and less than 33% among Democrats and Independents who I'd consider potential Biden voters.

    If you have a different poll I'd love to see it.

    givesomefucks OP ,

    If you have a different poll I’d love to see it.

    I haven’t seen a single person in here link a poll, but y’all keep throwing out numbers…

    So how about you link the poll you’re talking about before asking others to find one?

    nonailsleft ,

    Literally no one is saying Israel can’t defend itself.

    And it’s not what Israel has been doing the last 7 months.

    Then that depends on what one thinks is necessary to achieve this.

    They tried sitting back soaking up rockets and that just resulted in Hamas digging in and preparing to put a genocide on them

    There’s probably no real other option to defend against this happening again than going in heavy handed. Just like the US had to put a genocide on IS in Mosul and Raqqa to conclude those sieges

    givesomefucks OP ,

    They tried sitting back soaking up rockets and that just resulted in Hamas digging in and preparing to put a genocide on them

    What?

    You think that’s what Israel has been doing?

    That’s just not a factual statement…

    There’s probably no real other option to defend against this happening again

    What about Israel not spending decades violating Palestinian human rights or not seizing their land against international law?

    What about not kidnapping Palestinians in the middle of the night from their own country and torturing them till they admit to crimes?

    You don’t think that would ease tensions?

    nonailsleft ,

    They were attacked on day 1 of their existence.

    Sure, they’re a bunch of genocidal religious fucks. But then, so is the other side.

    So why would you say “they have the right to defend themselves” if your only practical implementation just amounts to “go back in time and magically fix a centuries old religious conflict”?

    givesomefucks OP ,

    They were attacked on day 1 of their existence.

    You mean when foreign countries stole a bunch of land and gave it away?

    You think right after that is when the conflict started?

    And that it had nothing to do with Israel being formed by stealing it from the people who lived there continuously for thousands of years?

    nonailsleft ,

    If you believe they have no right to live there and are free to be genocided until they leave, could you kindly explain what you meant with

    Literally noone is saying Israel can’t defend itself

    givesomefucks OP ,

    So by “Israel has a right to existent”

    You mean:

    “Israel has a right to this stolen land, and also all the land they’re able to steal in the future”?

    Yeah, I’m done here.

    ShepherdPie ,

    How do you classify invading land and killing civilians, while also cutting food and aid to said civilians as “defensive?”

    nonailsleft ,

    Indeed!

    Which turns us right back to the question: how should you defend yourself in this case?

    ironhydroxide ,

    The money wasn’t wasted, it went directly where it was intended for. The pockets of multi billionaire defense contractors.

    disguy_ovahea ,

    Congress voted in favor of munitions aid. The State Department reported inconclusive evidence of war crime. It would be unprecedented for Biden to alter existing contracts without support from one of these branches, and would likely be challenged in the Judiciary Branch in the form of an impeachment hearing for bad faith or personal agenda.

    We pay tens of trillions of dollars annually for the most informed State Department in the world. POTUS doesn’t decide based on information outside of our own intelligence, not news, the UN, the ICC, or the ICJ. Biden needs to pressure Blinken for a more thorough investigation, including the most recent “accidents” in civilian occupied areas, to provide a concrete platform for amendment or withdrawal of support.

    TL;DR: POTUS doesn’t make decisions on international affairs based on polls.

    Viking_Hippie ,

    I legitimately don’t know if it being such a giant waste of time and money was intentional

    It was either that or colossally incompetent.

    Given that it had to go through several rounds of approval before being announced and every independent expert pointed out that it would be much less effective in itself than delivering aid by truck while doing nothing to keep the IDF from controlling it, that’s highly unlikely, though.

    It’s a very transparent PR stunt that they almost certainly knew wouldn’t make a dent in the deliberately induced starvation.

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