We landed on the moon. Now we can’t even keep the Gaza aid pier afloat.

America is famous for doing great things.

Tomorrow [yesterday] is the 55-year anniversary of one of our greatest accomplishments: landing man on the moon. As millions around the world gathered around their TVs and radios in 1969, three bold Americans had traveled 240,000 miles to plant a flag beside the Sea of Tranquility.

The United States summoned its scientific, financial and moral will to achieve something endless generations of mankind had barely considered possible.

Can America still do great things? It hardly seems so.

We popularized use of the internet about 30 years ago and that certainly changed things; for the better, and the worse. The fall of the Soviet Union was another herculean accomplishment, a few years before that.

Since then, there hasn’t been a whole lot. Smartphones, Bitcoin … Vaping? That hardly swells the patriotic heart.

Just last month, we celebrated the 80th anniversary of D-Day. The United States led more than eight nations, using 7,000 ships and landing craft manned by more than 195,000 sailors to deliver nearly 133,000 troops in a single day.

We haven’t had much American ingenuity of late
More recently, we fled a hard-won victory in Iraq and were chased out of Afghanistan by tribesmen sporting small arms. Today we can’t seem to stop the Russians in Ukraine and mostly ignore China’s increasing threats against Taiwan.

We can’t even keep a small pier afloat off Gaza.

Remember the pier? In his March State of the Union address, President Joe Biden announced its deployment to “enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day.”

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A small flotilla of ships and 1,000 soldiers and sailors built the modest dock offshore, taking more than two months to do so at a cost of $230 million.

Once installed, trucks delivered humanitarian aid a few yards into Gaza. There, much of the aid remained, unused. In its first month, about 250 truckloads made it through – 4,100 tons worth – which is half of the daily deliveries in a single day before the war. Not exactly Operation Overload.

Pier has experienced one problem after the next
Since its installation, the pier has only been functional for about 20 days. Excuses were legion: bad weather, rough seas, no trucks to bring aid off the beach, attacks from the locals.

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“The pier is humanitarian theatre,” Refugees International President and former USAID senior adviser Jeremy Konyndyk said. “Much more about political optics than humanitarian substance.”

Though it was intended to last until at least September, it was heavily damaged in a storm and parts of it washed up on the shores of Ashdod. The U.S. military got it working again on June 8 … then suspended operations for two days and hauled it back to Ashdod, fearing a storm.

On June 20, the Pentagon insisted the pier would return soon and would be in Gaza to stay. “We have not established an end date for this mission as of now, contrary to some press reporting on the matter,” Air Force Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder said.

The Biden administration agreed, with one official stating that “the maritime pier is a critical additional conduit for aid deliveries.”

If only we could have given pier a quiet burial at sea
This week, they gave up and hoped no one would notice. “The maritime surge mission involving the pier is complete,” Navy Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, said at a news briefing Wednesday. “So there’s no more need to use the pier.”

During its brief deployment, an estimated 8,000 metric tons of aid were delivered via the pier. That’s the equivalent of about 600 trucks worth — the number humanitarian agencies claim need to enter Gaza every day.

Meanwhile, the war continues.

At this point, few Americans expect another “giant leap for mankind.” But “one small step” would be nice.