‘Amateur Hour’: Biden Admin’s Floating Gaza Pier Problems Go From Bad To Worse

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

New problems are mounting for the Biden administration’s $320 million floating Gaza aid pier which was already facing setbacks, despite becoming operational less than two weeks ago.

The U.S. military was forced to halt aid shipments to Gaza on Tuesday after the floating pier was damaged by bad weather over the weekend. The damage sustained from the bad weather is only the latest in a string of logistical and operational problems that have plagued the pier since it was constructed in mid May.

The JLOTS pier was a “horrible idea,” Michael DiMino, senior fellow at Defense Priorities and former CIA and defense official, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “It’s a horrible idea due to the challenges that we just saw basically wreck the whole project.”

“It was never a sound plan to begin with… whether it’s accidents, or logistical hurdles, or risk to our troops and all these problems that have come to fruition. I don’t think that there should be any effort to try to continue this, or salvage it, or fix it,” DiMino said, pointing to safer, more effective methods of delivering aid to Gaza. “I think now is an opportunity to say this failed. Let’s wrap this up before we continue to tempt fate.”

Biden's floating pier in Gaza appears to be sinking pic.twitter.com/bN8WxSZLXh

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) May 28, 2024

Getting aid into Gaza via the JLOTS system requires several steps. Aid is first delivered by vessels to the floating pier off the shores of Gaza, where it is facilitated by U.S. officials. It is then picked up by loading vessels and transferred back to a separate causeway pier attached to the shores of Gaza, then trucked by various aid groups to warehouses for distribution.

Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh confirmed that U.S. aid deliveries had been halted after rough weather and choppy waters broke the causeway pier apart on Tuesday, rendering it useless for the time being. The pier will be removed from the coast of Gaza and towed northbound to Israel for repairs; it will take “at least over a week” to fix the pier before it can be re-anchored on the Gaza coastline, Singh told reporters.

“We had a perfect storm of high sea states… creating not an optimal environment to operate this JLOTS pier,” Singh said Tuesday, responding to a question as to whether the pier is too fragile to withstand tough conditions. “Hopefully weather conditions won’t hinder it anymore [once it is operational again].”

The pier can only be operated during favorable sea conditions, in a maximum of three-foot waves and wind speeds not higher than 15 miles per hour. Aside from the minimum week timeline, reconstruction efforts cannot take place if sea conditions are poor, possibly adding further delays

The incident comes just a day after a separate stint of bad weather unmoored four U.S. Army vessels supporting the JLOTS system and sent them floating away from the operational site off the coast of Gaza. Two vessels floated north and were beached in Ashdod, Israel, while the other two anchored on the Gaza coast near the causeway. One of the vessels has been recovered, and the other three will be recovered by Thursday, Singh told reporters during Tuesday’s press briefing.

A video from the incident appears to depict U.S. soldiers from one of the beached vessels in Gaza stranded on the shores of Gaza while awaiting rescue, despite the Biden administration’s promise that there would be no U.S. “boots on the ground” in the region during JLOTS operations.

“This is amateur hour. It’s unacceptable that there’s so little planning that appears to have gone into this, to the point where half a dozen U.S. troops are washed ashore in a war zone surrounded by Hamas,” DiMino told the DCNF.

That problem was proceeded by another incident last week in which three U.S. troops suffered injuries during JLOTS operations. While exact details haven’t been disclosed — other than that it was a non-combat incident — two of the troops suffered minor injuries and the third was critically injured and subsequently evacuated to an Israeli hospital for emergency care; he is still in critical condition, Singh said Tuesday.

Days after the JLOTS system was constructed, shipments that made it to the shores of Gaza via the causeway and floating pier were quickly stolen off of trucks by crowds of hungry civilians, creating security concerns among aid groups responsible for distribution. The United Nations and U.S. have discussed alternate routes for trucks to transfer aid to warehouses in lieu of the incident.

There are also security concerns for the U.S. troops supporting the JLOTS operations. Pentagon officials, including Department of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, have admitted there is a baseline risk that Hamas operatives on the ground in Gaza could stage an attack on the causeway or fire at troops offshore.

More broadly, only a fraction of the aid needed to address the humanitarian needs of the millions of Palestinians in Gaza can be delivered via the JLOTS system, even when fully operational. U.S. officials have said that roughly 90 trucks worth of aid will be delivered to Gaza via JLOTS in the interim, and eventually up to 150 trucks once the system is at full capacity.

But the UN previously told the DCNF in a statement that hundreds of trucks of aid are needed on a daily basis.

“That makes the pier a relative drop in the bucket at best — a waste of $320 million American taxpayer dollars and the futile deployment of 1,000 U.S. service personnel,” Shoshana Bryen, senior policy director at the Jewish Policy Center, previously told the DCNF.

It is far safer and more effective to deliver aid to the Palestinians through other methods, chiefly by truck convoys through border crossings in Egypt to the south and Israel to the west, of which there are several. The international community has expressed concern that Israel and Egypt are not allowing enough aid to enter through these crossings, though Israel counters that it is already going to great lengths to ensure delivery; Egypt refused to allow hundreds of trucks worth of aid to enter Gaza through the Rafah border crossing until recently.

Related Topics:#DailyCaller #GazaAidPier #JakeSmith #USFloatingPierGaza

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RCMP Bust B.C. Fentanyl Superlab Linked to Mexico and Transnational Exports

Published on November 1, 2024

Todayville

Sam Cooper

@samthebureau

In a remote mountainous area of British Columbia, federal police have dismantled the largest fentanyl laboratory ever discovered in Canada. This western province has become a critical front in the Five Eyes battle against the production and distribution of deadly synthetic narcotics trafficked globally by networks involving Chinese and Iranian state-sponsored mafias and Mexican cartels.

In a groundbreaking discovery, the RCMP located the superlab in Falkland—a village of 946 residents nestled in the rugged terrain between Calgary and Vancouver—using Phenyl-2-Propanone (P2P) to manufacture methamphetamine. This production method, primarily employed by Mexican cartels, stems from the precursors and scientific expertise Mexican cartels have gathered from elite Chinese criminals since the early 2000s, according to U.S. enforcement sources.

David Teboul, Commander of the RCMP Federal Policing program in the Pacific Region, underscored the significance: “Manufacturing methamphetamine using P2P had not been seen in Western Canada until now,” he said. “The P2P manufacturing method has been the primary method used by Mexican cartels to produce methamphetamine for years.”

Demonstrating the destructive power of the cartels involved, the RCMP seized a staggering cache of illicit substances and weapons. Officers confiscated 54 kilograms of fentanyl, massive amounts of precursor chemicals, 390 kilograms of methamphetamine, 35 kilograms of cocaine, 15 kilograms of MDMA, and 6 kilograms of cannabis. The superlab was described as the largest and most sophisticated of its kind, capable of producing multiple types of illicit drugs.

“To put things into context,” Teboul said, “the over 95 million potentially lethal doses of fentanyl that have been seized could have taken the lives of every Canadian at least twice over.”

A large portion of the product was destined for other countries.

During the investigation, RCMP officers learned of several large shipments of methamphetamine prepared for international export. They intercepted 310 kilograms of methamphetamine before it could leave Canada, preventing a significant quantity from reaching global markets—a critical point as Canada faces pressure from its allies over its role in the global fentanyl and methamphetamine trade.

Teboul noted that the RCMP collaborated with its Five Eyes enforcement partners—an intelligence alliance comprising Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. Although Teboul did not provide specific details, this cooperation underscores the international scope of the transnational investigation.

The first suspect, Gaganpreet Singh Randhawa, was identified and arrested during raids. He is currently in custody and faces multiple charges, including possession and export of controlled substances, possession of prohibited firearms and devices, and possession of explosive devices. More arrests are expected, Teboul said.

The scale of this criminal network echoes the power and violence fueling gang wars that have rocked British Columbia, putting innocent lives at risk during high-powered shootouts in Vancouver. Investigators seized a total of 89 firearms, including 45 handguns, 21 AR-15-style rifles, and submachine guns—many of which were loaded and ready for use. The searches also uncovered small explosive devices, vast amounts of ammunition, firearm silencers, high-capacity magazines, body armor, and $500,000 in cash.

British Columbia has been grappling with an influx of synthetic opioids like fentanyl, significantly exacerbating the opioid crisis across Canada. The province has witnessed a surge in overdose deaths, prompting law enforcement to intensify efforts against drug production and trafficking networks. Experts highlight weaknesses in Canadian laws and a lack of federal oversight at the Port of Vancouver, which have been exploited by transnational crime and money laundering organizations from China, Iran, and Mexico.

This significant bust comes at a time when Canada is under increased scrutiny from international allies over its role as a hub for the export of fentanyl and methamphetamine. The superlab takedown appears to align with serious concerns raised by lawmakers in Washington about how Canada and Mexico are being used by transnational crime organizations to distribute fentanyl worldwide.

A recent U.S. congressional report argues that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) strategy relies less on overt military actions and more on covert tactics, including trafficking of fentanyl and leveraging money laundering, aimed at exploiting vulnerabilities across social, economic, and health domains.

“Fentanyl precursors are manufactured in China and shipped to Mexico and Canada. For precursors that arrive in Mexico, Chinese transnational mafias work with Mexican cartels to smuggle and distribute fentanyl in the United States on behalf of the CCP,” the report states. “The DEA confirmed Chinese transnational crime leaders hold government positions in the CCP and indicated that Chinese transnational crime organizations are dedicated to the CCP.”

“The public deserves to know about the CCP’s role in fentanyl production and how the Party is using fentanyl as a chemical weapon to kill Americans,” the report adds. It recommends that Washington publicly “blame the CCP as much as the DEA and its partners currently blame the Sinaloa Cartel” for fentanyl trafficking and urges the government to “educate international allies about CCP chemical warfare” and encourage them to condemn Chinese transnational crime.

According to congressional investigations, Beijing is actively incentivizing the export of fentanyl and methamphetamine worldwide. The report alleges that Chinese criminal organizations, including Triads led by individuals with official positions in the CCP, are working alongside Mexican cartels to generate profit to fund interference operations in America.

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International

RFK Jr: Trump has ‘asked me to clean up the corruption’ in federal health agencies

Published on November 1, 2024

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Emily Mangiaracina

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he has been tasked by Donald Trump with ending the conflicts of interest that now compromise the integrity of U.S. health agencies, with devastating ripple effects on the well-being of Americans.

Former Democrat-turned-independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Wednesday that former President Donald Trump has asked him to reorganize and “clean up” federal health agencies like the CDC and FDA if Trump is re-elected in November.

Kennedy, who joined Trump’s presidential transition team in late August after dropping out of the race himself and then endorsing the former president, shared in an appearance on NewsNation that Trump wants him to “reorganize the federal health agencies” affecting human health, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as well as some of the agencies within the USDA.”

“He’s asked me to clean up the corruption, number one,” Kennedy said. “Number two, end the conflicts of interest.”

In recent years, Kennedy has spoken much publicly about the pattern of corruption and conflicts of interest that he witnessed firsthand during his many years as an environmental attorney. During Kennedy’s presidential run, he discussed how the “corporate capture” of regulatory agencies is the “biggest threat to American democracy.”

As Kennedy explained during his Wednesday NewsNation appearance, “When you litigate these agencies, you get a Ph.D. in corporate capture and how to unravel it.”

According to Kennedy, the problem is pronounced in health agencies, where for example, the FDA “gets 50 percent of its budget from Big Pharma” and the NIH “collects royalties when (a) pharma company sells (its) product,” as he explained in an interview last year.

Kennedy went on to share Wednesday that he has been tasked by Trump with “return(ing)” those U.S. health agencies “to their rich tradition of gold-standard, empirically based, evidence-based medicine.”

He shared that Trump has also tasked him with ending “the chronic disease epidemic in this country,” adding, “And he’s asked me specifically to measurably reduce chronic disease in our children within two years.”

On Wednesday, he cited statistics showing unprecedented, drastically poor patterns of health in Americans, especially in children.

According to Kennedy, a staggering “77% of American boys cannot qualify for the military because of a chronic disease, and that while when he was a child, “the average pediatrician saw one case of diabetes in his lifetime,” now one out of every three kids is diabetic or pre-diabetic.

He further shared that in his generation, only “one in 10,000” has full-blown autism, whereas now the rate is one in 34 children.

“This is an existential threat to the country,” said Kennedy, adding that Trump wants his “legacy to the American people” to be “the end of the chronic disease epidemic.”