Posted on 06/26/2024 7:02:01 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo
The latest news is that the pier may be terminated ahead of schedule. Erected in mid-May by the U.S. military to deliver seaborne assistance, the pier’s operations repeatedly have been interrupted by rough waters.
A storm broke the pier apart only days after going into service. After millions of dollars of repairs, it was thrown back into action. Days later, forecasts of choppy waters led the military to tow the pier to safe harbor. It’s just returned to service a third time, though it’s hard not to believe that the project’s days are numbered.
Mother Nature may end up being the proximate cause of the pier’s demise, but it hasn’t been the only problem foiling the effort. Security has also been a major problem. In the brief time the facility actually functioned, the relatively small amounts of assistance making it to shore were being widely looted by desperate mobs.
Remarkably, Biden and his team didn’t demand a solution to the security problem before making the pier the centerpiece of a major presidential initiative. Nor did they bother to develop one in the two months that it took the military to get the pier into place. With the eyes of the world watching and U.S. credibility on the line, the administration’s approach to a well-defined set of challenges that could make or break the effort seemed to amount to little more than hoping things would work out.
Alas, they haven’t. Instead, the pier has become a humiliating internet meme and joke — and at a price tag of more than $200 million in U.S. taxpayer funds and months of effort by 1,000 troops.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
Biden’s foreign policy will be judged by his piers...............
I can only say the only positivity from this monstrostity is that it gave the military an opportunity to test this.
😴😴😴😴😴
It was just another Biden hoax as he is playing both sides of the fence. Shame he dragged the military into it.
Is Boeing the contractor for it—branching out into pier construction? All of those contractors are overpriced for what they deliver. Way too much overhead is allowed.
This whole episode is sad. It’s sad that the US even tried to do this. But what is more sad is that our government built these piers that appear to be so timid that they cannot be used in an “normal” beach configuration. If it cannot handle the swells of the Med, how the hell will it handle the Pacific waves?
I guess wars like this are “test grounds” for our military—much as the Spanish Civil War was used to test equipment and tactics prior to WWII (and the AVG in China.) I think our systems these days cost a lot more than a few P40’s.
Our procurement system is a damned mess.
I kind of remember BHO’s saying “Never underestimate Joe’s ability to ‘F’ things up!
all about the optics folks, nothing more.
As a work of performance art, it was a great success.
DAMNED GOOD THING HE WASN’T IN CHARGE WHEN DEC 7, 1941 happened.
Yes, let’s tow a pier rated at 3 feet of sea and 10 mph winds to an area the exceeds those levels virtually every day. Hopefully the tow and the retrieval were or will be executed with electric boats.
I would like to know the Army’s version of this, were they in opposition to the assignment.
Trump should buy it for $5000 and move it to Mar al Lago.
$320 Million to test?
A simulation on a computer would have been a lottttttt cheaper.
It was built back better and is working perfectly !
It’s a whole lot of money spent for publicity, but that’s the only positive out the whole debacle.
Piers fall apart, doors fall off of Boeing aircraft. Buy American.
“...these piers that appear to be so timid that they cannot be used in an “normal” beach configuration.”
The pier used was never designed for use on an open beach but rather in a war/nature damaged harbor where it wouldn’t be subjected to wind and waves.
Apparently the system is all the Army and Navy currently have on hand. I have no doubt that whoever added the pier scheme into the State of the Union Address had no idea what they were expecting our military to accomplish.
I have no doubt that our military can land lots of stuff on a hostile shore, if we go in shooting, put boots on the ground to secure whatever we’re putting ashore.
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