Bohica, TCNs

incoming

The general shittiness and halfassedness of the floating humanitarian aid pier the US military is planning for Gaza just became a little shittier. Context first: the role of TCNs in American military operations in the Middle East.

During the Iraq War, I spent a year in northern Kuwait as an operations sergeant in an infantry battalion TOC — the tactical operations center. We had companies scattered around the desert to provide quick reaction forces in case American military facilities in Kuwait were attacked. They weren’t, ever, so we were extremely bored. I worked nights, and volunteered to run errands into Kuwait City during the day so I could indulge in the elegant scenery of that exquisite nation. Like Barstow with national sovereignty, we used to say. The army-run camps in the north were very American.

But one of our companies was at Camp Navistar, on the Iraqi border, near the crossing point on MSR Tampa. An MSR is a main supply route — the big highway where we sent bullets and beans into the war zone. Giant truck convoys would form to our south, at Camp Arifjan, and roll through the crossing near Navistar to get into Iraq. The convoys were protected by four gun trucks, but they were very long convoys that went on for many miles, so the soldiers providing security would lose sight of many of the trucks on the road.

The drivers in those convoys were TCNs — third-country nationals. Bangladeshis, Nepalese, Indians. Since they were civilian contractors, they weren’t allowed to be armed. And then the supply trucks got separated from the gun trucks, in the vicinity of the dirt-poor Iraqi border town of Safwan, and the soldiers in the gun trucks would find the dead TCN drivers on the side of the road. Our QRF at Navistar would go up and look for the missing trucks, and occasionally find the emptied trailers. Weirdly, the well-fed and remarkably affluent Iraqi National Police were often already on the scene, iykwimaityd.

Many discussions ensued in which infantry sergeants proposed to solve the problem, and colonels and generals sent down word that the Iraqi National Police were to be respected as our allies. The complexity of the problem of having our supply drivers murdered by our very good friends in the Iraqi security forces resulted in the command consensus that look, we’re just gonna lose the occasional TCN, nothing we can do about it. And indeed, we did go on losing some of those drivers from time to time. I mean, shit happens, right?

So. The original plan for the floating aid pier off the Gaza coast was that American troops would do the work on the water, while British troops would drive the trucks onto shore. Then Hamas dropped some mortar rounds on the site of the future onshore marshalling yard as UN officials toured it, and suddenly there’s a new plan, developed during a sudden operational pause that’s definitely because of the weather.

The Army ships will then travel toward Gaza where they will meet up with the Trident pier. There, the trucks onboard the LCUs and LSVs will drive onto the pier and onto the shore of Gaza where the humanitarian aid supplies can then be staged for delivery inside Gaza. Ryder said non-U.S. civilian contractors will be responsible for driving those vehicles. 

It's expected that initially about 90 truckloads of supplies will transit the causeway each day and make their way into Gaza. When the operation reaches full capacity, as many as 150 trucks will make their way into Gaza daily. 

Non-US civilian contractors. Third-country nationals. We’ll lose a few, but, you know, omelettes and broken eggs and all that. Let’s have the British drive the tr— actually, you know what, let’s get some Bangladeshis.

It’s very humanitarian, and deeply progressive.