The Tucker Carlson Show - Whistleblower Tony Aguilar Responds to Attacks After Exposing Israel’s War Crimes in Gaza

Episode Date: August 6, 2025

When Lt. Col. Aguilar reported seeing horrifying war crimes in Gaza, neocons attacked his character and his family. He returns to respond. (00:00) Aguilar Responds to the Accusations Against Him (...03:46) The Shady Business Practices of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and UG Solutions (11:32) Aguilar Refutes Claims That He Was Fired (14:06) Is Johnnie Moore a Fraud? (21:49) Aguilar Debunks the Accusations Against Him (43:05) Is This an IDF Operation? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Colonel, thanks for coming back. I wanted to speak to you at greater length, given that after our interview last week, a barrage of attacks against you. Some of them sounded kind of serious, came out, and I wanted to give you an opportunity to respond, but also to clarify some of the points that your former employer is making about you, Johnny Moore, who runs your organization, the Gaza humanitarian federation, was on television this weekend, calling you a liar, suggesting that anyone who criticizes his group is, pro-Hamas, et cetera, et cetera. So I'm just going to go through some of the claims against you because you're making
Starting point is 00:00:35 some significant statements that will, I think, color people's understanding what's happening in Gaza. So I think it's important to do this. So first, I just want to get to your separation from the Army was in January. You left the Army in March, if I'm remembering correctly. What did you do right after you left the U.S. Army after 25 years? So right after my departure from the Army, I had no interests in politics or a second career. My interest was being a stay-at-home dad.
Starting point is 00:01:30 I applied at Lowe's, and I was doing part-time Lowe's Lawn and Garden, really enjoyed it. What does that mean Lowe's Lawn and Garden? So working at the Lowe's Hardware Store in the Lawn and Garden section, giving recommendations on wheat eaters, what plants to buy. Really? Yeah, I found it very therapeutic. By the way, I love that. I'm not criticizing. I was not looking for a life of stress. I was not looking for a life of attention.
Starting point is 00:02:01 I have no social media whatsoever. I don't even have LinkedIn for employment purposes. My family and I enjoy a private life because we enjoy our lives together. I'm not really seeking anyone's approval. I'm not seeking clicks or follows or Instagram likes. So yeah, when I first got out of the Army, I was keeping things pretty low-key. I'm spending a lot of time with the family.
Starting point is 00:02:31 My wife and I are both. My wife and I are co-den leaders together in my son's Cub Scout Den. So we co-den lead for my son's Boy Scout Den, which is phenomenal. We love it. And just all the things we're involved in. And after my years in service and the places I've been, and the family moments that I have missed in life, I felt that the rest of my life should be committed
Starting point is 00:03:03 to being a good father, raising a good family. Because I think that's the next phase in life for me is contributing to the next generation. And for me, that's my son and the youth. So it's pretty much what I was doing. I was not seeking excitement. So you get out after graduating West Point, 25 years in the U.S. Army,
Starting point is 00:03:26 Green Beret, Lieutenant Colonel is your rank when you get out, if I'm... It was, yeah, I was a senior ranking lieutenant colonel. Yep. And then you wind up working at Lowe's Home and Garden Center. Mm-hmm. And defleaded your son's Boy Scout troop. It's pretty great. But that's not the picture of an activist, I would say.
Starting point is 00:03:46 It's the opposite. So how did you wind up going to Gaza? You gave an abbreviated version of the story, but if you could just walk us through exactly how that happened? Sure. And, you know, what I would like to remind people and especially remind Mr. Johnny Moore is that, you know, I did not, I did not work for GHF. It's very hard to actually find any information about GHF. I work specifically for UG Solutions as a subcontractor for the security component of the greater Gaza Humanitarian Foundation mechanism. Okay, so GHF is Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
Starting point is 00:04:22 That's the group about which it's very hard to find any real information. It's very difficult. That is distributing aid in the Gaza Strip. UG Solutions is the security contractor providing security for them as they do that? Is that correct? So the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, by their own accord, they claim to be a nonprofit. Okay. G.HF is not really a thing in function.
Starting point is 00:04:52 They have, again, there's so much that's unknown. It's a very shadowy, shady type of organization. Underneath GHF is a company called Safe Reach Solutions. They're another private security contracting firm. They're what's called a prime contract. They hold, they're the, they're for profit. absolutely for-profit money-making business that has that's basically the the the contract underneath them they have subcontracts almost like building a home okay got the guy that's
Starting point is 00:05:27 building the home you got all your sum contractors yeah of course so uG solutions is a subcontract to the building of this of this home okay specifically providing the armed security component and no one else under the safe reach solutions framework is authorized to be armed. So anytime you hear anything about who may have been shooting, it was either within Gaza, it's either the Israeli Defense Force or UG Solutions. UG Solutions.
Starting point is 00:06:01 Now, what is UG Solutions and who owns it and where's it based? So I got a phone call May 13th. They called me and they were asking, you know, we're specifically looking for recently retired or out-of-service soft veterans to join us on this mission to Gaza to do the distribution of humanitarian aid. I thought that perhaps this company was humanitarian aid focused. I could find very little on the company, but I did see that they were based in North Carolina. I saw that the founder of the company, his claim to fame was that the, you know,
Starting point is 00:06:41 He was a green beret at one point. He served as a green beret in the United States Army. And once he got out, he went into some entrepreneurship with a post-recovery, alcohol hangover drink. I don't know what it was called. But it kind of gave me pause to think that where's the expertise, where's the experience, where's the, and I thought, okay, maybe he's just a guy. You ran an energy drink company?
Starting point is 00:07:10 energy drinks slash it was advertised as the ultimate hangover beverage for the soft operator that has a few many drinks the night before can get ready for the mission the next day that was kind of his claim to fame is that he even in his biography on the website for this company he calls himself self-titled I'm not calling him this this is not me saying it he calls himself a derelict so um it just kind of give me pause that
Starting point is 00:07:45 that this is and i thought okay maybe he's just the you know the owner you know sometimes the owners don't necessarily um contribute to the mission but it did give me pause um to think you know how how did all this come together how did all this come together so quickly in the hiring and you know so they they called me and the question that i've had many a time that I often ask myself is why did you why did you do it then yeah that was my next question yeah why um and i remember i sat before when they called me i said my answer is not yes my answer is not no i'd like to discuss it with my wife and you know just consider the timing and um let me let me get back with you and when i talked to my wife i told her i said hey going into this full eyes wide open this is going
Starting point is 00:08:37 to be rough. It's probably going to be dangerous because the amount of just the, what I see is like the lack of experience in planning to this magnitude. This is a seriously complex and seriously complicated mission that requires, you know, people that have deep experience in this. This is, again, as I've said, this is not a weekend job. This is not a, you know, let's just go try this out. This requires depth of expertise, which was not present. So I talked to my wife about it. My wife said, you know you do you have been a lot of that so you can contribute you can you can help you can be of value what i really believed in was that if the united states was going to go into gaza proclaiming that our method is going to replace the u.n we're going to we're going to we're going to do this now
Starting point is 00:09:30 that i wanted to be a part of what i thought at the time was truly an American ideal, an idea of American exceptionalism, that America will go in into the breach, into danger, and will help. That's what I really felt. Like, I really felt like that America was putting a good foot forward in this to say, like, hey, we, we respect our ally. We don't want to necessarily get involved or criticize the prosecution of the war. But we also realize and recognize a real need to end the starvation. So I really felt that being a part of it was something that was in line with American values.
Starting point is 00:10:17 I really wanted to be a part of it. So what does it mean to be safe in your own home? For a long time, that meant good locks and maybe an alarm system. That was enough. But they're not enough. And you know that because the news was filled with stories to people who thought they were protected and fell victim anyway. Simply safe can help prevent you from becoming the next victim.
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Starting point is 00:10:58 They can call the cops to get the intruder away from your house. house and prevent them from coming in. Not all security systems do that. The difference is enormous. That's why our team, along with 4 million other people in this country, trust SimplySafe. Monitoring plans start for about a dollar a day. They include a 60-day money-back guarantee. Visit Simplysafe.com slash Tucker to claim 50% off a new system with professional monitoring in your first month is free. That's Simplysafe.com slash Tucker. There is no safe like Simplysafe. um so uh gauze humanitarian foundation i'm going to go through some of the claims they're making um that you were fired were you fired i was not fired um not only was i was i not fired
Starting point is 00:11:50 and i've brought some some points to discuss to kind of lay out the the pathway to my eventual termination in terms of me you know they call contract termination um that I terminated my contract in writing. So in terms of contract termination, yes, my contract was terminated. I terminated it in writing. You quit? Essentially, yes, you could say that.
Starting point is 00:12:15 I quit in protest, much like those before me, much like Jake Wood, former director of Gaza humanitarian validation who stepped down in protest, the second in charge of the entire contract for UD Solutions, who on the 27th of May
Starting point is 00:12:28 with a very scathing email, to the leadership to the CEO stepped down in protest the one of the operations directors in the higher level company of safe reach solutions stepped down in protest I was not the first and I was not the last when I did I quit in a way to where I I wanted to stay involved in the mission so I had coordinated to work with safe reach solutions getting the the prime contract to specifically be working on the humanitarian assistance team because that would put me in a position to where I could then influence how operations on the sites ran. I would, as the humanitarian assistance team person that had leadership to take charge and to plan accordingly, I could be in
Starting point is 00:13:20 charge of how rules of engagement, standard operating procedures, distribution process, organization and planning and and I felt that it was better for me to stay and be involved than to walk away and and just leave you know leave no one at the wheel so I did terminate my contract in writing on the 13th of June and provided it to the leadership in writing and so just to be absolutely clear you were not fired I was not fired and and you I suppose have the email resigning not only do I have the email, you know, I have the email chain. I have the, you know, the actual letter itself that I, that I wrote to them. And, you know, you can, you can read it yourself. But this was provided in writing. And what I would continue to ask of UG Solutions and Gaza Humanitarian Foundation with Johnny Moore,
Starting point is 00:14:17 who, you know, if he wants to say that, that I am a liar, I think that that's fair. He has said that you're a liar. He has said that I'm a liar, and that's unfortunate because he doesn't know me. I have opinions about him, but I don't know him either. But to say that I'm a liar, I served our country for 25 years in uniform, and what I would say is that America made me. Graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, I served in the Army for 25 years, answered the call not just once, twice, three, four times, but 12 to fight in battle. for the ideals of this nation. So for him to call me a liar, I think that all veterans and all Americans
Starting point is 00:15:00 should take pause and think about who's calling me a liar, someone that has spent his entire life self-serving with PR firms and selling Bibles and whatever else it is he does on the side. Who is Johnny Moore? Do you know? Have you met him? I have not met him. I didn't shake his hand
Starting point is 00:15:20 and talk to him. I saw him when he came to visit very very briefly so what i would call a photo op um so he does not work in gaza oh absolutely not he's only i mean i think he's only so what's interesting is that this entire time that this operation's been going on now for you know operating since the 26th of may till now so breaking 70 days um he's only been there one time for a photo op i find it appalling he doesn't work out of gaza absolutely not he's I should say we put in three interview requests for Johnny Moore. He's not even in Israel. So how was he running the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation?
Starting point is 00:16:03 From his flat in Virginia, I guess. I don't know. I don't know where he lives, but I know that he's, he is, he is not in Israel. He is not in Gaza. He does, he doesn't have an act. So it's what it feels. like to me is that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is a side project resume item for Mr. Johnny Moore. It's not something that he's dedicated to, and it's not something that he has the
Starting point is 00:16:36 expertise and the acumen to understand how to run. Does he have any background in distributing humanitarian relief that you know of? No. And what's important to understand is that going with a missionary organization to somewhere and and and distributing some meals or um providing you know religious support that that isn't humanitarian assistance humanitarian assistance is an operation it's a very complex operation keeping two million people from starving to death is different from it's not just food it's water medical veterinarian services to make sure that we're not we don't have a rabid animal population right it's it's so many things that the the experts within the united nations that are educated that that spend their lives to become experts in are very very very good at doing
Starting point is 00:17:29 so to think that we can just take that on and do it is it's very it's a very arrogant way of looking at this problem so johnny more has no background in this he's not there um i just saw him interviewed on fox news and he suggested you and everyone else who's criticized the operations of the gauze humanitarian Foundation are pro-Hamas. Are you pro-Hamas? I am not pro-Hamas. That's a pretty heavy charge. I mean, Hamas is a designated terror organization. Yes, I mean, that is a heavy charge to lay on somebody from an individual that carries such little weight. Yeah. So, yeah. Doesn't sound like the Christian response to criticism to me, but what do I know? Well, I would say on his appearance on Fox, You know, in just the short time I've been doing this with no PR firm and no, no polished background, I was a soldier.
Starting point is 00:18:26 And after a soldier, I worked a blue collar job. And I call myself a husband and a father. I don't call myself by any other name. And since this story has broke, from Hollywood to Bollywood, polar bears to penguins, people want this story because it's the truth, not because of me. because the world wants to hear the truth for once it's interesting though i mean the the forces against you organized immediately and i mean they had a press conference attacking you they did during that press conference which i watched they didn't respond to a single not one of the allegations you made about
Starting point is 00:19:03 their conduct in gaza not one instead it was a litany of attacks on you so i just want to continue to go through some of them absolutely to get your response so the most damaging in from my perspective by far was the fact and they showed the signal message is that you had written complementary texts to the management of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation at the time you now say you were dissatisfied with their conduct. Did you write those texts and if so, why? So those text messages that they had captured out of signal Snapchats were something called impact statements.
Starting point is 00:19:36 Those from me, those weren't to the leadership of GHF, nor were they to the leadership of safe reach solutions. those were specifically to the the Americans on contract under UG Solutions specifically. That is who I worked for and who I worked for only. The chief operations officer of UG Solutions who was forward at the time directed me in writing. I mean, directed me in writing to daily create these impact statements to include a photo and something positive. At that point, the contractors were really run down. We were running 24 to 48 hours. There was very little organization. And it was keen that everyone was becoming
Starting point is 00:20:32 quickly unmotivated. So I was asked, so I did send out a picture once from one of the days we were there that was a, that was a nice photo of a boy who was happy. And I I think it's as a leader, which I am, though I was not in a direct leader position there in the beginning, I was promoted to one, but leaders don't gripe down. Leaders gripe up. As a leader, did I make my issues and my complaints and my dissatisfaction absolutely known to the leadership directly in writing and in verbal? Absolutely.
Starting point is 00:21:09 But the contractors that are there that are doing everything they can to the best of their ability with a complete lack of information. And I will also say that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has set them up for failure with no legal protection. So my position in that was that I want to contribute to the mission and the men. And my gripes and my issues are with the leadership. I was directed to do that. depressing but true statistic. Nearly half of American adults say they would suffer financial hardship within six months if they lost their primary income owner. That's a telling sign that people are living on the edge, many of them. The economy's fragile. That's true for millions
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Starting point is 00:23:12 I did not have any authorization or nor did I have the capacity to send anything up and out. I had no contact information other than our signal chat groups for UG Solutions. I had no communication with anyone above that.
Starting point is 00:23:24 There's my, my communicates went to, to the men. Now, they did go up to GHF from the CIO of UG Solutions. He would send them up, but they did not come from me. Okay, so you were not,
Starting point is 00:23:38 so your position is you were not complimenting the conduct of the Gazi Humanitarian Foundation. You were saying to the guys providing security for this benighted operation that, you know, they're doing their best. Keep going, guys. And for the most part, the 277 up to 314 men on contract, and I say men because they all are men, there were no females on the contract, no women on the contract. but so I use that term specifically but um the men on the contract majority are veterans
Starting point is 00:24:10 combat veterans yep and they felt that they were doing the right thing the lack of leadership and guidance is what has led to where we are now in fact not just a lack of guidance but the guidance of do what the IDF do so not the lack of guidance but the the giving of just completely unethical and immoral guidance. That's not how the United States, we don't follow other people's lead. We set the standard. So that raises the question
Starting point is 00:24:42 that I'm going to ask you in just a moment, which is like who's working for whom here and where's the money come from? But first let me get to one last criticism of you, which was that you weren't even in the field very often. That's what they're claiming. Yeah, and you know, that's both disappointing and surprising because
Starting point is 00:25:00 every photo that they put in that PowerPoint to show different things are pictures that that I took on location. I was on a distribution site in Gaza every day. 24th of May mid-S-D-S-1, and I brought these so you can look at them there. Every single day. is a photo of me or a photo taken by me that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation then used in their public releases. You took all these pictures?
Starting point is 00:25:41 All of the photos that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation released publicly until the 13th of June were taken by me. Okay. Well, I guess that pretty much proves your point, doesn't it? I was not only there. I was there when others were not. Case in point. we had, and you may found this story amusing, we had 30 Palestinian volunteers, local workers.
Starting point is 00:26:10 So Palestinians that worked with us on the sites. In a lot of the photos, they're the ones that you see with the blue vests, and they were there to work with us to help with communication, to help, you know, they're from the local population, to help with the crowd, as much as they could. And they were brought on to the location, but GHF and SRS hadn't budgeted the money to feed them. So for a foundation that's supposed to be feeding people, thus far they've proven that they can't even feed their own employees. So myself and one of the humanitarian team workers who works for SRS, there was no, there was nothing else we could.
Starting point is 00:26:58 could do because it was Shabbat and everything was closed in Israel. The only thing opened was Domino's Pizza. So we ordered 32 Domino's pizzas. From where? There's a Domino's in Gaza? In Israel. Oh. And the, in the Israeli side. And we went to go pick them up and then with an armored vehicle, with armored personnel, myself and two others, armed. We delivered Domino's pizza to security distribution site one so that the local pop, the local Gaza workers, or the local Palestinian workers could eat that night because GHF and SRS had no plan in place to feed our local Palestinian workforce. We delivered them pizza.
Starting point is 00:27:41 I would also like to add that we did it in less than 30 minutes. I hope they tipped you. So I think you've, to my satisfaction, you've batted down the three main claims they made against you, but those are not the only claims. I don't know if Gaza humanitarian infidationer Johnny Moore is saying this directly, your family's been attacked. Yes. Extensively.
Starting point is 00:28:01 Yes. Since you told your story. Where's that coming from and what's your reaction to it? I think that there's a lot of, so a lot of attacks and or hate against my service record. Were you honorably discharged? Not only one was I honorably discharged. I was I was honorably discharged under what's called a 100% combat-related special compensation, which is rare. So in the military, when you retire, there's the VA process, separate process.
Starting point is 00:28:42 Everybody can apply to that. Through the military, through DOD, there's the combat-related special compensation process to where if what you've endured is directly as a result of combat, you can have a further special compensation to, where not only am I a 100% totally and permanently disabled U.S. Army veteran honorably discharged with honors. The Army has also credentialed me with 100% combat-related special compensation, meaning that my injuries and wounds afford me to where none of my income is taxed because of the sacrifice I made for this country. And you were, you know, commended and awarded a medal for brave or at least one. So what are they, what's the criticism exactly of your service record?
Starting point is 00:29:35 So what I think is, well, so individuals have who think that they know me, who don't. Again, all of these people that have attacked my family and I, we think it's, we find it amusing because they all do it from behind a keyboard, from behind some Twitter. handle. No one's come on the record. Here I am on the record. My name, my reputation, my life, you can find me on the internet. I'm here. But people that choose to attack me do it behind a pseudonym or behind their keyboard. If America thinks that that, that anybody should trust that. I don't think, I don't think most Americans do. And the attacks I've had is that, well, of course he's never seen anything that brutal before because he, well, he was SF. He never saw combat. He didn't command a special forces company. And what I would like to
Starting point is 00:30:33 say to people out there that think otherwise, not only did I command a special forces company in third special forces group First Battalion, I was also the battalion's executive officer and deployed that entire battalion to combat. I was then offered a second command to command the United States Army survival evasion resistance and escape school. So not only did I command a special forces operational combat unit, I also commanded the United States Army's Sears School at Fort Brake. So for anybody that wants to say that, well, he commanded here and didn't commanding that, you can FOIA my DD214 and you can read it. I'm a little confused though. What exactly did you do wrong why and they attacked your marriage they attacked your wife yeah your service record there's
Starting point is 00:31:23 no evidence that any of it's true i've looked into all of it it's their lies at least that's my conclusion but what exactly is your crime what did you do wrong so people would you know the in the united states army to make it to the rank of lieutenant colonel you know people talk about colonel general officer those are all nominative those are like um icing on the cake the the golden pen the golden watch if you will is o five lieutenant colonel command select battalion command and i commanded a battalion an operational battalion that deployed for people to say that oh well he commanded a a this battalion instead of that battalion from coming from people that have never commanded These individuals that bash me online never held a command in their entire lives.
Starting point is 00:32:17 But why are they bashing you in the first place? I don't understand. So here's the story you just told. You get out a long lifetime, 25 years, distinguished career, highest level. And then you work at Lowe's Home and Garden Center and run a Cub Scout troop. And then you decide you're going to go over and try and pass out food-d starving people. And then you decide what they're doing is. immoral and you say so, I mean, those all seem like the right thing to do. I don't really know
Starting point is 00:32:49 where's your crime exactly? Is you criticize the behavior of a company that's serving a foreign government and that makes you a criminal? Or like, why are you being attacked? I don't really get it. I think that the criticism of something that is very lucrative when it comes to money. So I would portend, though I have no proof because I have no way of knowing this, I don't even know, I haven't even, I haven't even seen the posts myself. And to be quite honest, they're clowns. My family members have looked at them and they're all under, I think one guy calls himself Green Beret nap time. Oh yeah, I'm really going to lose sleep of what that guy thinks of me. um so the uh it it part of it is ignorance people who haven't been there think they know because of what they heard from their buddies who also haven't been there to the men that are there mark my words because i have lived it when they come home and the adrenaline wears off and the 1,300 $180 a day stops and life goes back to normal and you have to look at your children and you have to look at your wife and you have to look at yourself in the mirror it's going to come to you and when that day comes you're going to want to tell the truth i've seen it i was on site with these men where they see things and they're like what are we doing that's not right that shouldn't be and they they it's easy to ignore it when you're
Starting point is 00:34:29 in Gaza, where seemingly people don't care, where you can report 30 deaths outside of a distribution site and have Johnny Moore say it didn't happen and get away with it. It's criminal. Well, here's a story you probably haven't heard a lot about. The Chinese mafia is exploiting rural America to create a drug empire. This is not available on cable news. The network's not telling you about this, but it's totally real. Communist-affiliated drug gangs destroying parts of the United States, the parts that Washington ignores, to sell drugs, laundering money and building a black market network inside this country's most beautiful but least served areas.
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Starting point is 00:35:42 to watch now. We think you'll love it. Johnny Morris said it didn't happen. Johnny Morris seemed to deflect every instance of, and again, what I find interesting is that that the people that are coming out and speaking to the atrocities aren't Hamas, doctors, surgeons, Americans. Johnny Moore says they're pro-Hamas. Oh, yeah. Anybody, anybody that has anything critical to say of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation automatically becomes labeled by Mr. Johnny Moore as Hamas. And that is dangerous.
Starting point is 00:36:23 This is not the 1950s where, You know, I'm a patriotic American. Well, didn't you spend, like, decades fighting radical Islam with a rifle? Spent decades fighting radical Islam from grassroots to long-entrenched radical Islam in the moral Islamic liberation front in Southeast Asia. Even, you know, new radical Islam in the Middle East is a different flavor than the old entrenched grassroots radical Islam in Southeast Asia. And I have been a part of both. So how does it feel to be written off as a Hamas? supporter.
Starting point is 00:36:58 Me? Yeah. If it came from anybody that I held to be credible, maybe I would care. But, I mean, who is Johnny Moore? I mean, I think yesterday when he was on Fox, it was, it made my heart warm that you could hear outside of the Fox studio the protesting. In fact, the host said, we have some people outside exercising their constitutional rights. And yes, continue the protest. Go to his house and protest.
Starting point is 00:37:26 because he is lying to the American people. And it's really sad. So if Mr. Johnny Moore wants to call me Hamas or call me a name or say that I don't know what I'm doing or say that I'm a liar, it matters not to me because the American people know better. Where's show us your books, Johnny. Show us where the money comes from. So what do you know? I know you made it clear that you didn't work for Gazi Humanitarian Foundation, but you worked providing security for them through a couple of different layers. But where does their money
Starting point is 00:38:03 come from? I don't know. And what's what's appalling to me is that that exact same question you ask, sir, is the same question that every member of Congress that I spoke to over the last two weeks has asked me. They, I mean, you've made the point with, and you did the math on it, that they are not feeding the population of Gaza, despite what they say. And they can't because they don't have enough distribution centers. They've got three working distribution centers in a country of over two million people. So that just doesn't make any sense. But they are bringing in truckloads of food. Who's paying for that? I mean, there's money here, right? There's money. There's a lot of it. And there's no indication of where it's coming from at all. No indication. The only indication
Starting point is 00:38:46 anyone has to include, again, not just lonely old peon me, but Congress. Our United States Congress has no idea where the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's money comes from other than the 30 million that came to the State Department last month. Who do they work for? Do we know? Don't know. So, I mean, Gaza's controlled by the Israeli military. In fact, the Prime Minister of Israel just announced 20 minutes ago that the Israeli military is not going to occupy all of Gaza. So they must work for the IDF. I mean, I can't. Do you think that they do? so from in terms of the gaza humanitarian foundation at at that level that high level i can't say i i would think that that there's probably a higher entity now safe reach solutions which is the actual
Starting point is 00:39:40 contract mechanism like the actual um the the execution of the contract um does answer to and the client is the idf and that was told directly to me looking at me in my face and my face based by the operation. So they're the contractor that provides security or everything else as well? For SRS? Yeah. So SRS, one of the subcontractors is UG Solutions for Security. One of the subcontractors is another company called Arkell at a Louisiana.
Starting point is 00:40:09 It's very hard to find anything about them. They provide the trucking and the driving. And then there's another company called LMC underneath SRS, the 10 Israeli company, that provides the construction materials for the sites. Okay. Okay, so Safe Reach Solutions is the contractor that handles, like, all the details for passing out aid from building the facilities to providing men with guns to protect them. SRS is what most people would think GHF would be doing.
Starting point is 00:40:40 Right, exactly. Yes, sir. So, and they work for the IDF. Yes, sir. Okay, so this is an IDF operation. I mean, the way I would describe it is that the United States is providing a humanitarian assistance mechanism that is not providing food nor water nor assistance, that what I would call is an appendage of the Israeli defense force. So if you consider the combat operations that have been going on
Starting point is 00:41:05 in southern Gaza, in any combat operation, you have an offensive force and you have a sustainment force, you have a shaping force. If the active combat, activated combat reserve units in the south are the combat component conducting offensive operations. SRS, thereby Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, I would call shaping operation number one. Displace the population, move the population, allow for phase two, the ending of Operation Gideon's Chariots. That just ended last night. That started when we got there, like the day after we got into country. What was the purpose of that operation?
Starting point is 00:41:48 To clear the entire central portion of the enclave. Of Gaza. Yes. From what's called the Marag corridor, which runs east to west just north of the sites, through Rafa, Mwasi, Kanunis, Berish, up to the Nessarim corridor. So, yeah, that was the objective of Operation Gideon's Chariots, which, as of last night, came to an end, highly criticized because they didn't accomplish that task. entirely. But now they're shifting into the next phase, which, from a military perspective,
Starting point is 00:42:24 if you are trying to absolutely destroy a nation, that's exactly what you would do. You conduct wide area security, you conduct offensive operations, you establish control, and then you occupy. And that's what they're doing. What's happening in Gaza is often described as a war, and you said you heard and saw small arms fire, mortars, artillery barrages, but they were all coming from the IDF. Did you see counterfire? Were they fighting against an armed enemy? Was it actually a war? Did you ever see any Palestinians committing acts of violence when you were there?
Starting point is 00:43:07 In all the days that I was there, and again, GHF, who again, their lawyers and their... Press personnel have gone there for some photo shoots. I've been to every site. I've seen the IDF around every location. I've seen the IDF operational graphics and array of their battle forces. I've seen it with my own eyes. I have never, in the entire time that I was there at every site, seen an armed Palestinian.
Starting point is 00:43:37 Not one? Not one. So the artillery, the mortars, the soldiers, the soldiers, the soldiers, the soldiers. small arms, I mean, these were, they were not defending themselves. No, sir. There was, they, the IDF, you, again, I'd like to clarify in terms of the, the position that the IDF is in, the Israeli defense forces, the position that they've been put in in the South is untenable, operationally unsound, and they, they shouldn't be to have active, And I put that on GHF because when the IDF said, here are these sites, we put them in operational combat zones. That's why Jake Wood stepped down.
Starting point is 00:44:26 Jake Wood on the 26th of May, day one, cut the ribbon, yellow shovel, or golden shovel, here we go. Supposed to give us a big pep talk. He stepped down. And who is he exactly? Jake Wood was the previous Johnny Moore, if you will. He was the guy in charge of the guys of humanitarian foundation that as soon as this thing kicked off, we're going live. he stepped down and then Has he ever explained why he stepped down?
Starting point is 00:44:49 I have not I've never met the man I don't know much about him other than when we were about to kick the whole thing off that was going to be this you know kind of this pep talk you know great
Starting point is 00:45:02 you know go forth and do great things and then it was hey pep talks canceled because he stepped down it was kind of it left kind of us kind of a lot of us just thinking And what is this?
Starting point is 00:45:18 So this all starts. You were there from the very beginning. They're almost 300 or over 300 American contractors providing security. When you start to see the Israeli military shooting unarmed people, including children, does anyone talk about this at night? Like, I can't believe what we're watching. Yes. And in fact, in some of the videos that have been taken that I've taken,
Starting point is 00:45:41 And I think it's another interesting story to go down the, you know, how the videos got released because UG Solutions released them themselves, which was ironic. But in one of those videos, I'm walking and one of the other contractors with me says, it shouldn't be this way. It didn't have to be this way. We didn't need to do this. And what he's talking about is the fact that the Palestinian crowd was calm and controlled, and they were leading. We held off. Yeah, what's wrong? No, I just, I didn't want it to get it up.
Starting point is 00:46:13 I know, I know. When you're trying to push thousands of people through a very small exit, it doesn't happen quickly. So as they're leaving, UG Solutions personnel following the lead of the, that's what the IDF do, spraying with pepper spray, stun grenades, warning shots, this contractor, he's walking next to me. And he says, clearly, it's in the conversation of the video, shouldn't be this way. We shouldn't be doing this. It didn't have to be this way. And I said, and I say to him in the way, like, hey, you know, because he was, he was one of the leaders of the mobile team. He wasn't in charge on site.
Starting point is 00:46:51 So he was just, he didn't have the authority. But I was like, hey, you did it. He did a very good job of maintaining his composure. And I said, hey, you did a good job. This isn't on you. You know, we did, you did what you could. But people recognize it. And people are coming forward.
Starting point is 00:47:07 There are a number of, at least close to a dozen now, of other things. contractors that have either come out off the record and some that will soon that are multiple coming coming on the record so the gazi humanitarian foundation and safe reach solutions and uG solutions they can they can bash me bury me make fun of me all they want doesn't bother me got no i've got skin in this game but what they think bothers me not others are coming behind me Is GHF going to call everybody a liar? Are they going to call everybody a disgruntled employee? Was I disgruntled?
Starting point is 00:47:44 Everybody a Hamas supporter. Everybody's a Hamas supporter. All of these American veterans that raised their right hand to serve our country in uniform for decades when Johnny Moore didn't serve his country a day. He's going to call us all Hamas. He's going to call us all liars. We're all disgruntled employees. So put that on me. Put it all on me.
Starting point is 00:48:03 I support Hamas. Say it. I'm a horrible employee. I didn't perform. Say your worst because those that are coming behind me, you're going to say that about them too? You can't. And the truth is coming.
Starting point is 00:48:23 What did you think of the IDF? Did you deal with them when you were there? I did. The Israeli defense forces that were specifically activated to conduct operations in the south, in Gaza, were reserves. Right. Reserves called forth rapidly.
Starting point is 00:48:45 So there wasn't a lot of training, almost none. I think they probably got even less training than the UG Solutions guys did before they went in, and that's pretty abhorrent. Not disciplined, not professional soldiers. It's not what they do. Not impressed with their, with their proficiency and performance because, granted, as a reserve force that's called up and immediately put into combat, when the United States calls up reserve forces, we put them through an extensive preparation for sure. Absolutely. Because it's not their profession. These soldiers didn't get that. And they were thrown into the fire, thrown into the fire by the Israeli government into a precarious, untenable situation that no army should have to deal with. You should not put
Starting point is 00:49:33 food distribution sites in an active combat area. What did, I mean, were there officers aware of the fact that they were shooting kids? I believe that they were, they were all aware. And I, and I think that on the, at the lower level, and it's starting to, it's starting to come out now. There are, there have, every day, there are more and more IDF soldiers that are returning home. Again, as I said, when these contractors, come home and the adrenaline's gone and you're not living and you're not in the situation anymore and you have to look yourself in the mirror and those things come back to you that we shouldn't
Starting point is 00:50:14 have done that we shouldn't have allowed that same thing that's happening with these IDF soldiers they're reservists they're in there for 90 days they come home almost like clockwork as they come out of that as they come out of the field and they decompress they have to look at themselves in the mirror when you're in there and you're in war and the fog and friction of war alter your compass alter your your azmuth
Starting point is 00:50:39 your moral compass and when you step back into society where there's expectations of civilization and that moral compass straightens up again there's a lot to answer for
Starting point is 00:50:50 it's happening a lot of the IDF that are there that are serving are coming out and saying like yes we were ordered to shoot the children
Starting point is 00:50:58 we were ordered to shoot by their officers by their officers by their units you mentioned a food distribution site where there were 30 dead bodies that was um it was 20 20 yes that was secure distribution site number three on the 16th of july how do you kill 20 people was there like a revolt of the people do they go after the idf or how does that happen so um that's a lot of people. I was not physically there. However, what GHF put out in their press release was that it was
Starting point is 00:51:34 a stampede. It wasn't away from the site. It wasn't near the site. It was on the site. It was smack dab in the middle of the distribution site where where starving human beings are collecting food. It was a stampede. That stampede killed 20 people. Now, they say that one was stabbed. I've never seen any documentation of that. But 20 were killed. So if you fire live ammo, was there live ammo being fired? Absolutely. As quote, again, the, even the lawyer for UG Solutions who spoke against me said that Aguilar is a liar. Though our forces may shoot warning shots at their feet and over their heads, we don't shoot at them. Well, thank you, Mr. Contract Attorney, for admitting to a war crime on the record. Because shooting at
Starting point is 00:52:25 an unarmed population targeting, shooting at them, shooting in their direction intentionally to control them is specifically prohibited in the protocols of the Geneva Convention. So thank you, Mr. Attorney, for putting that on the record. When people get shot to death or trampled at a distribution site, what happens to the bodies? Does Gaza Humanitarian Foundation bury the bodies? Oh, no. No, Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, Safe Reach Solutions, UG Solutions, we don't have anything to do with it. The IDF will come in, collect up the body.
Starting point is 00:52:55 and or, or the IDF will allow the International Red Cross Red Crescent to come in and take the bodies, in this case, from site number three to the Al-Nasar Hospital. And what I find interesting in that very instance, that same day, July 16th, 20 people killed on site three. GHF even put it in a release, sadly to report that 20 Palestinians or 20 civilians were killed on site, Hamas did it. Hamas started the stampede. But then when the hospitals, when the surgeons in Nassar hospital said,
Starting point is 00:53:31 we received 30 dead bodies from, or excuse me, 20, 20 dead bodies from this site, IDF and GHF said they're lying. You just said that 20 people were killed on your site. Now the doctors are coming forward and saying, yes, we did receive 20 trampled dead bodies. Now you're saying they didn't. How did Hamas kill, trample the people to death? The claim is that on site number three that day, Hamas incited a stampede.
Starting point is 00:54:01 How? That is absolutely ludicrous. Site number three, on the 28th of May, site number three had a very similar situation. Site number three is, each site's kind of got its own flavor, if you will. Each site's kind of like its own arena. site number three because it's right in the middle of between site number two and an IDF base it's very canalized when the foot traffic from the Marag corridor comes south into the site it's very congested it's very tight the exit is very tight and the exit is also very constrained
Starting point is 00:54:43 with debris just mounds of rubble so when the people are leaving there's really nowhere for them to go except continuing to be pushed through this small exit it is the perfect setting for a stampede of human beings. It's if it was created for that. On the, on the 28th of May, site number three, it is a bottleneck. It is a bottleneck surrounded by razor wire and surrounded by fighting positions where IDF have machine guns. And they're firing live rounds. Firing live rounds. When you hear UG Solutions or anyone talk about a quote unquote warning shot, There's no such thing as a warning shot. I've never heard of that before.
Starting point is 00:55:24 What does that mean? The United States military doesn't use it because firing a bullet is firing a bullet. Escalation of force would be, for an example, if I was in Baghdad as a combatant, an actual under Title X authority, under the United States Constitution, fighting as a belligerent in war. I can't just walk up to somebody and be like, oh, that looks like al-Qaeda, I'm going to shoot them. There's to be a threat. and the process of that threat where unless you are engaged in active combat you feel a threat
Starting point is 00:55:52 it's typically you have signage like hey don't go past this point right then you shout show and then you shoot and when you shoot you shoot to kill you're not shooting a warning shot warning shot is such a misnomer it's not a thing
Starting point is 00:56:09 bullets are these 556 rounds they are not only 556 rounds they are 556 m855 green-tips steel core armor piercing rounds. So what's the lethal distance of a round like that, fired flat? Like, how far does it travel? Oh, well, considering, like, if I was on an M-4 range, you know, I'm shooting at, for a qualification,
Starting point is 00:56:34 I'm shooting out to 300 meters at the furthest pop-up target. Maxim, like maximum effective range of, with that M-4. is out to 500, but out to 800 to 1,000 in terms of where the bull travels with its velocity. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, very far. So if you're firing thousands of rounds, even if you're firing over people's heads, like where those bullets go? Where are those bullets going? What's the answer?
Starting point is 00:57:02 When UG Solution says, we fire towards the sea, the sea's a big place. And you know what? The sea crashes into? Beach. And you know what's along that beach on the coastal road in Gaza? hundreds of thousands of civilians. So when UG Solution says that our men fire into the air or towards the beach, well, thank you again, Mr. Attorney,
Starting point is 00:57:25 for just verifying to the world that you are shooting bullets into a crowd of unarmed civilians. Because what lines the entire coast from north to south of the Mediterranean Sea and Gaza? Thousands of human beings. Have you ever, I mean, you had 12 deployments, So have you ever seen anything like that anywhere else? I have never experienced, witnessed, been a part of anything that was that uncontrolled, undisciplined, barbaric, immature, and what I would call just a reckless, reckless endangerment. We are not dealing with, we're not, first of all, UGS contractors in Gaza are not belligerent combatants.
Starting point is 00:58:13 We're there on a tourist visa. Tourists. And you carried a firearm? Fully automatic firearm. Where did you get the gun? U.G. Solutions provided them to us from an Israeli company called IWI. It's an Israeli company that makes this weapon. All of our weapons, our shotguns, our pistols, our machine guns, our fully automatic rifles, all came from IWI.
Starting point is 00:58:37 So you land on a tourist visa and they hand you an automatic rifle? And we didn't qualify it on it either. really we did not qualify on our weapon system which was a requirement in the contract which is why i brought this up as a point because zeroing your weapon as you know you you you calibrate the weapon to you of course qualifying is a whole other stage once you zero the weapon and it's calibrated to you you demonstrate your proficiency can i use this it's even the most elite of military forces zero and qualify on any weapon that they use immediately Immediately. It's the first thing you do. In fact, the contract itself, the contract even states that we must demonstrate proficiency and qualify on our weapon before we go into Gaza. No one, not one person, no one qualified on their weapon system.
Starting point is 00:59:30 So they handed you a rifle and... They handed us rifles, pistols, and machine guns of which we didn't qualify on any of them. Had you operated those specific weapons before? No, I mean, I mean, very few people. I mean, maybe there are a couple guys that are, that are, you know, that are enthusiasts within, you know, that have rifles that may have an IWI rifle. I'd never heard of it. I don't own one, but no. Oh, these were actually manufactured by IWI. Manufactured, not just given to us by IWI. These are IWI rifles made in Israel, right off the, right.
Starting point is 01:00:05 Was you never operate that kind of rifle before? I would say the majority, very, probably very, very, very, very few. if any of the contractors had ever operated that weapon. I had never even seen one. I wasn't even aware of what I gave it to me. And when they first handed it to me and I looked at it and the options were safe, single, fully automatic. I was like, whoa, this is a, this is serious. Not even the United States Army infantry gives weapons that are fully automatic.
Starting point is 01:00:36 For humanitarian assistance? Loaded. They give you ammunition as well. 210 rounds of M855 green tip steel core armor penetrating ammunition. Why green tip ammo? You know, I really, I really don't, well, again, the Israelis gave us that. But is there a reason? You wouldn't give someone that type of ammunition in a very closed, condensed space like that unless you either had no regard for human life, civilian human life, or you were intentionally trying to kill civilians.
Starting point is 01:01:10 at distance. It's, when we were given that ammunition, I thought it was absurd. I was like, I thought we were going into Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid and we had a weapon only, only to defend ourselves against an imminent threat of death, meaning I don't pull that trigger, not a warning shot, not a celebratory shot. I do not pull that trigger unless I am directly threatened with the imminent threat of death. So why are you giving me steel core armor penetrating? I wouldn't say armory piercing, but armor penetrating ammunition
Starting point is 01:01:42 that can shoot through sand berms like a hot knife through butter. What are we doing? Well, that's what the IDF gave us. That's what we're going to use. I'm like, yeah, but aren't we paying for it? It's part of the contract, right? We're paying for it. Can't we dictate what we buy?
Starting point is 01:01:59 Well, this is all they have. And I'm like, that's not true. That's entirely not true. So you passed out food. Your job was to provide security at sites where they were passing. passing out food, but you have said that they didn't pass out water because it was too expensive. How does that work exactly? Is there a lot of water in Gaza? And the food you're passing out requires water to cook it, right? It was like dried beans and corn and stuff. Yeah, it's kind of like your kid turned 16 and they walk outside and you got the big bow on the Pontiac and it's like, happy birthday, and you give them the keys and it's got no gas in it. Real jerk move, right?
Starting point is 01:02:38 so to give people food that requires water to cook it and then give them no water and in order to get to the food they have to walk eight kilometers and then walk eight kilometers back to their house to cook it and you give them no water it's it's so inhumane and evil that it can only be deliberate is there a lot of water in Gaza there's none I mean other than cisterns from rainwater remnants of old wells that may be still operating at a very low level, but in terms of municipal type water, fresh water, tap water, absolutely not. So how do, I mean, is anyone else bringing water into Gaza? No. No water. No. That's why if you saw on the news today, just today, and this is not just in Western media,
Starting point is 01:03:30 this is an Israeli news, N12, Channel 13. I watch all the Israeli news breaking news on my, I'm just into it now. And the new, where the now realized danger is that they're, they're critically low in running out of water, which should not surprise anybody. How would they be getting it?
Starting point is 01:03:54 We're not, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation isn't providing any. Did you bring this up? We brought this up on the very first day and not just myself, other contractors. other people that have a conscience that were like, okay, I see this child or this woman breaking into a box of food. And it's all dried goods, no prepared goods, all dried goods
Starting point is 01:04:22 that require water to make, that require effort to make. There's no water. And we asked that. And we were told, well, the IDF said no to water. Well, who's in charge here? I mean, I thought we were doing the humanitarian aid. Well, we are, but we're not going to push back on it because water would be three times more expensive per truckload than we can bring in equal to that of three trucks of food, and more food is better than limiting that per water. And I'm like, I think someone that was actually educated in humanitarian assistance and providing humanitarian aid and someone that was a nutritionist that was well-versed in feeding people would probably disagree with that. I would disagree with that water in the united states army if you're in the field and conducting combat operations
Starting point is 01:05:09 i mean not having water is a sin you don't go without water so us providing no water for food that has to be cooked with water is almost like a slap in the face it's dehumanizing where is has johnny more addressed this no because johnny more won't answer any questions and to be fair. I don't think he doesn't answer it because he's a bad guy. I think he doesn't answer it because he doesn't know. He knows nothing. I'd be willing to take, I think it's a very charitable view. When I heard him suggest that anyone who criticizes him and his, quote, life-saving work is working for Hamas. That's where I began to wonder if he was really a good guy, because good people don't immediately deflect in that way and accuse their critics of working for a terror group.
Starting point is 01:06:01 There are legitimate questions. You don't have to be a Hamas sympathizer to ask. Yeah, I think that's delivering enough water. I think that's very inflammatory and bombastic to think that that anyone that would speak out against seeing travesty and dehumanization is automatically labeled as Hamas because you don't agree with his perception. Especially if he's an American army colonel from San Antonio who spent 25 years fighting radical Islam. I think it's a little much. Whose wife served in the military? Yes. Whose parents served in the military?
Starting point is 01:06:34 Yeah. Yeah. That's so I don't, you know, I think that others can judge whether Johnny Moore's a good guy, but I don't think he gets the presumption of good guyness after he says something like that. That would be my position on that. I try to give everybody the benefit of the doubt. No, I think, and bless you for it. You're a better man. Never met him.
Starting point is 01:06:53 So you brought this up. They said it's too expensive. Too expensive. And the IDF doesn't want the Gossens to have water, so no water for them. Yeah. Again, when there wasn't a cooperative discourse with the IDF in terms of how many trucks, how much food, which sites, which times, it was directed. And there was no conversation. It was, you will deliver to this site during these times, these many trucks, you will distribute this much at this time.
Starting point is 01:07:23 And that is it. So the IDF is totally in charge. It's operationally. The IDF get to dictate when we go in because they control access into Gaza. So when all of our trucks get loaded, we can't go into Gaza proper from Kareem Shalom until the IDF say it's okay. Sometimes they don't let us in. You worked with the IDF on and off over your career. I have.
Starting point is 01:07:46 What did you think of the IDF when you're in the Army? Overall, as holistically, not impressed. Now, there are some units within the IDF, within the Israeli Defense Force and with the Israeli Ministry of Defense that are, Good. Yes. Professional. Good. Best of the best.
Starting point is 01:08:05 Famous. Rit large? Not impressed. Interesting. And not because necessarily that they're bad soldiers, but it's leadership. Poor training, poor equipment. This idea that, you know, and part of it is that when you think about the Israeli defense force, they're not, the Israeli military structure doesn't call themselves an army or a Navy or a Navy
Starting point is 01:08:32 or an air force. They're Israeli defense force. They defend Israel. Yes. They're not, they're not expeditionary. They're not like the United States Army that has to train to fight wars overseas. They defend within. And for the most part, they're fighting an enemy now at this point that are women and children and old men. It's not hard to defeat and annihilate an enemy when your enemy the majority of them are under the age of 15 it's easy to shoot kids it's it's uh it's almost you have to have a sense of cognitive dissonance to do it you almost have to separate yourself from the situation which is why i've said many of these contractors if they have a conscience which i think many of them do because they've served in the military and they
Starting point is 01:09:28 know what right and wrong looks like and in the IDF that when that separation of that cognitive dissidence between your morals and what you're doing comes back to you as a human it hits hard and in the coming days and weeks as this operation as operation gideon's chariots has ended and the Israeli army has to refit into this restructuring for occupation which is a whole new ball game. Occupational Army, U.S. Army World War II, U.S. Army post-invasion of Iraq, that's when things get really nasty. That's when things get really gray. We think that things are complicated and complex now. Wait until you put an occupation army under the streets of Gaza City. If you don't mind fleshing out the difference between what's going on now and a
Starting point is 01:10:17 formal occupation. So right now in the South, so consider if you're a combat force. infantry, armor, tanks, artillery. You're maneuvering. You're maneuvering against an enemy. We're not. In this case, I didn't see many enemy out there. I didn't see any enemy out there. When you're an army of occupation,
Starting point is 01:10:38 you then become static. You become routine. You become identifiable. That's when counterinsurgency often resonates the most, is that so right now, if I were Hamas, while the active war is going on, The offensive. I'm laying low. I'm going to come out and get killed. When the occupation begins, that's when the insurgency presents itself in armed violence. Yeah, that's when you have permanent bases. It's going to get violent, and it's going to get deadly. And as the, well, more deadly. And if the United States doesn't set a firm tone of what's acceptable and what's not, no longer can we have this.
Starting point is 01:11:24 IDF do what you will and we'll just kind of we'll play back up no we cannot the president of the United States needs to set clear firm expectations and boundaries with our ally
Starting point is 01:11:36 because this occupation two things will happen one it's going to become extremely violent grotesquely violent Markava tanks being blown up on the Saladin road going into Gaza the Israelis won't like it
Starting point is 01:11:52 but then also when forces begin to go into Gaza City and other people start to see the amount of starvation and destitute and destruction it's going to bring the world to its knees and it's not going to be a year from now it's not going to be months from now
Starting point is 01:12:15 days from now when the rest of the world sees what Gaza looks like is that what you're saying Yes, because if you consider So the Spaniards, the Jordanians, and the French have each gone in and dropped airdrop. AirDrop is ineffective because each aircraft you see flying over,
Starting point is 01:12:40 pushing out bundles, that's only the equivalent of half of one truck. It's not much at all. Half of one truck only feeds a couple hundred people. one meal. Not to consider what hits the ground and explodes. Most of it doesn't make it to the ground safely. So those airdrops were for show. For the first time in a long time, others besides the Israeli Defense Force Air Force have seen what Gaza looks like from above. And the Israeli government specifically said no media in the aircraft. But some of the crew on these aircraft, the Spaniards, the French,
Starting point is 01:13:28 the Jordanians, saw that and went back to their governments and were like, this is beyond words. And I can attest to that. Just from the air, it was obvious to them the devastation. So when they're conducting equipment drops in this case, food palate drops, it's at a lower altitude. It's not like it's from, you know, know, it's not like from 10,000 feet in the year. It's from a lower altitude, which you get a pretty good view of the ground of the ground from above. And the scale of devastation in Gaza that not that I just, you know, I'm not talking about someone that saw this from the outside or someone that saw pictures or someone that looked at a picture and assessed it. It was there, touched it, felt it, smelled it.
Starting point is 01:14:15 What's it smell like? So very, you know, for those that have experienced it, the smell. smell of death, human death, has a very unforgettable smell. You mean like rotting bodies? Rotting bodies, starvation, the body just breaking down. And when that's in mass, it's overwhelming. I smelled this same smell once in Baghdad during the 2006 time frame during the height of the
Starting point is 01:14:50 sectarian violence. when Sunni and Shia were just slaughtering each other. And one of our jobs that we had to do during that time was on our patrols, we would take a truck and a trailer and we would load bodies. Many of veterans have done this. This is recorded history. We would load with the Iraqi army.
Starting point is 01:15:09 We would go through neighborhoods and load bodies because they had just been slaughtered. Families slaughtered. You did that? In terms of picking up the body. Yeah. Yeah, while in Baghdad in the height of sectarian violence during my very first deployment as a platoon leader, and many a veteran can attest to this because we had to do it. We would have to move through on our combat patrols.
Starting point is 01:15:36 We would have to take army trucks and trailers with Iraqi army personnel to load up bodies because there were so many. That's, that smell is something you never forget. in Gaza standing on the berm of site number four looking north to Gaza City so if you're standing on site number four and you're looking south
Starting point is 01:16:01 you see Beresh and you see everything to the south towards the Egyptian border if you're standing on the northern berm you're looking at Gaza City the apocalypse it's the only thing I can describe it as
Starting point is 01:16:16 well in the evening when that that coastal wind comes over the Mediterranean and sweeps through and that hits you in the face. It smells like death. And to that scale, mark my words. Someone that's seen it, someone that's lived it, someone that's touched it, someone that's felt it. When the world gets a look at what's in Gaza City and Jabalya and southern Erez on the Gaza side of the border, the world will not tolerate it. So what I would say to every American leader, politics aside, put the politics aside, we need to be on the right side of history because our allies are close.
Starting point is 01:17:02 Some of our, you know, we say that Israel is one of our closest allies, some of our closest allies, France, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia are all standing and we're not. that says something um have you brought this to the attention of american lawmakers i have and some of them have taken action um congressman castro i had a very good conversation with his staff and him um senator warnock um senator tillis uh senator van holland what did tillis say well senator tillis you know as a republican his his concern is is because we have have a large constituency of North Carolina, North Carolinians, veterans who are in Gaza armed on a tourist visa, lied to with no protections. That's his constituency. I'm a, I'm one of his people. So, yeah, people need to, people need to take notice. This is not a political
Starting point is 01:18:07 party line. This is humanity. So when you go into Tillis's office, who's a very strong pro-Israel guy, big neocon, big neocon. And you tell him this story, how does he treat you? So we talked to, we talked to his staff on, on, on, at his invite, his professional staff that gave notes to him. But every meeting I had with, with Congress, whether they were Republican or Democrat, when I sat down and I told them the truth of it, we have Americans, U.S. citizens, veterans that we put into Gaza, armed to stave off a hungry, starving population with no rules of engagement on a tourist visa. One of the staffers even spit out his coffee when I said it. Explain the significance of being an armed combatant from a foreign country
Starting point is 01:19:03 on a tourist visa. Why is that bad? Well, anytime, you know, imagine if you will, someone came from France to the United States to visit just to see New York City check out the sites and they wanted to be here for a few days so they would enter, you know, blue passport bloop, go through clear, get your little ticket. You're on a tourist visa.
Starting point is 01:19:27 Imagine coming from France to go check out the Big Apple and you're walking around with a fully automatic machine gun, a pistol, a shotgun, and armor piercing rounds. That would be absurd. Now, what I continue to say, what... So in other words, I mean, you have no protection at all. You have no legal protection.
Starting point is 01:19:49 Not only do you have legal, not have any legal protection under is the Israeli government. We're there under the good graces of just hoping that, you know, that at some point, some Israeli official doesn't see what we're doing and saying, like, that's criminal. Right now, everybody's just like, just do it because nobody sees it. But man, are we, I would call it, you know, like back in the day, we're riding. dirty. We don't have any legal protection. And no rules of engagement. What do you mean? With no rules of it. So the, I feel it would have been incumbent upon safe reach solutions as the problem to issue a rules of engagement, but they did not. So a rules of engagement is something
Starting point is 01:20:28 and even the most elite units in the United States military get briefed on and rehearse a rules of engagement. That's what makes up. What can you do under what circumstances? That's right. can't you do that's right especially when it comes to pulling a trigger to shoot a bullet to kill a human when all of those humans are unarmed civilians that's that's something that throughout the history of the world that we from from the battle of jericho i've been there wasn't in the battle of jericho but i went to jericho on my way out of israel um from jericho to what we're seeing now the world has always had the notion of protecting and safeguarding the vulnerable, unarmed population.
Starting point is 01:21:14 It's what the Geneva Convention and Humanitarian Law is based on. We've always done that. Why is it different now? Except in the book of Esther. Sure. Yeah. They're genocided, but whatever. Excuse me.
Starting point is 01:21:28 Yeah. Again, did the Americans you were with, like having a, I don't know if there's beer for sale in Gaza, but whatever you do at night after a long day of watching civilians get shot at distribution centers. Did anyone say, man, this is kind of nuts? So the contractors that I mostly spent my time with because, remember, I was the, as soon as we got into country, I was promoted to be the Joint Tactical Operations Center team leader. So I had a small team who predominantly worked out of the Joint Tactical Operations Center. I had additional duties laid upon me by the leadership of UG Solutions in terms of taking pictures and, you know, being this pseudo PR person because they had no one to do PR slash this pseudo operations person. So that's why you took all the pictures.
Starting point is 01:22:21 So taking all the pictures, I was told to do in writing. I didn't take that because it was a hobby. I had no intention of taking, like prior to getting there in my phone, I mean, I still had a flip phone before I was. went because I wanted to get a new one so I could watch movies on the plane in in in getting there like the only pictures I had on my phone were like a few from you know some family stuff and not a phone picture taker um so all the pictures you showed me the ones right here with the dates on them and it's basically took pictures every single day you were there it looks like they're all timestamped um you were asked to take these by your employer told
Starting point is 01:23:05 Told. Not asked. Told. There's a, you know, this email here from a, I think it's funny when they say about my, my performance here is that, you know, so this is an email. I have this, um, email here from Mr. John Corrigan, who is the chief operations officer of UG Solutions. Pretty important job, boss, ish. And this is back to the headquarters at North Carolina. To me, just a lonely old contractor.
Starting point is 01:23:35 I'm not going to say the guy's name that he sends it to. Please add Tony, who C-C'd, to our headquarters distribution list. He produces the daily impact report that I've directed him to do, and he does all ground planning for movement for our team. Critical player to the operation. That was on June 2nd. Someone that's not a good performer, someone that was fired? On June 12th.
Starting point is 01:24:03 The day before UG Solutions apparently said that they fired, me, which they did not. Tony, you've done a great job in taking photos and videos which have been in a tremendous asset to UG solutions. Apologies if this has caused any consternation for you. We know that you are fully aligned with UG policies and are a member of the team. This is on the 12th of June. Fired me? No.
Starting point is 01:24:32 you resigned what the next day i already had my resignation typed up that day what is important about this day on the 12th of june which i think is it would be funny if it wasn't so upsetting is that all of the pictures that i took every day go out into the field take pictures document let's tell the truth well the truth that i grew up with is the truth that the truth, you don't get to, you don't get to cherry pick the truth. So every picture, every video, everything I took from the good to the bad to the indifferent. When I came back, I uploaded into the, they established a Google share drive for me specifically every day. That was one of my tasks. Come back from a site, sit down at the computer, upload the photos and videos,
Starting point is 01:25:21 and then wipe them from my phone. They didn't want me to have them. Why didn't they want you to have them? They didn't want anybody. So in, in the contract, they specifically state that any photos, written experience, pictures, or video are the sole proprietary property of UG solutions. How you own an idea or a thought? I don't know, but sure. So I'd upload them and then wipe them. U.S. and then wipe them. So I didn't have them. On the 11th of June, the Jerusalem Post, which I think is funny because they were all also one of the ones that ran the Tony's a liar, which was, it's just absurd to think about it
Starting point is 01:26:06 because they, that actual news outlet took one of my photos and used it on the front page of their magazine. It's on there, it's a picture of a boy holding a box of aid. And in fact, John Ackrey, who was on the press release that GHF did today, asked me if he could use that photo as part of his personal collection because he thought it was so compelling and impactful to tell the story of what was going on in Gaza. He called me on the phone. I don't even know who he was. And I said, yes, you can use it for your personal collection. So all of my pictures went into this share drive. That picture made it to the Jerusalem Post. I got blamed. Oh, you sent your picture out to the media. I was like, I didn't send a picture out to the media. I don't even have them.
Starting point is 01:26:55 so I email the chief operations officer like hey John can you clarify this because kind of getting some heat and he does and he clarifies hey that he says you know it wasn't it wasn't you that did it um it was you know we uh um I'll read it so I'm not a good employee gentlemen and this is to all the leadership of UG solutions Tony you've done a great job of taking photos and videos, which have been an asset. We know you've kept those internal and point to point with me and me only. The issue we had
Starting point is 01:27:34 is that one of our Israeli political folks at the highest level who we believe had compartmentalized access to certain materials that we owned that we agreed to share, turns out, he accessed the photos
Starting point is 01:27:50 and now he has them all. Well, We have told him to explicitly not share these. He has shared these with the media, and we have no control over the photos. We have since shut down access to only UG personnel. Apologies of this caused any consternation. We know you're fully aligned to policy. Bottom line, we attempted to fulfill a request from our Israeli partners,
Starting point is 01:28:15 and they took advantage of us upon themselves without coordination to their government and higher headquarters and now all of the media meaning pictures and photos are out. Funny is that days later when I got back to the United States
Starting point is 01:28:35 I got all of my videos and pictures back that I took from an Israeli citizen. Like, these people are clowns. So they've made a bunch of specific allegations against you at a press conference and media appearances,
Starting point is 01:28:55 it sounds like you can refute all or most of them with documentation, all of them. Are you going to sue them for slander? Because this sounds like slander. Suing is so laborious. You know, I just, I really want all of this. I want the story to get out,
Starting point is 01:29:16 and I want our government to take action. So I can enjoy the pre-fall fishing. I'd like to get back to work at Lowe's. You're going back to Lowe's Home and Garden. Oh, yeah. Like I said, it's therapeutic to not have to worry about so many issues and just help people. Yes. So, but again, you know, to all these letters, you know, UG Solutions and GHF may say, well, we still fired him.
Starting point is 01:29:46 Two things I'd like to ask GHF. I would like the termination letter. like their firing letter. I want it. I want to frame it. I want to put it in my office as a as the worst employee of the month of the worst employer that I've ever worked for. Give it to me. Give me my termination letter. If you fired me, you notice when they put up this slew of documents that they never provided a termination letter, give it to me. Show us. I'd like to have it actually. but this letter, I think, is really just tops the Sunday with a nice cherry. This is from UG Solutions corporate, from the C.O back in, so they had a CEO state side,
Starting point is 01:30:29 and they had a CLO forward, kind of like a home-in-away team. I read this on breaking points, but I think it's appropriate for this. Dear Tony, as your engagement with UG Solutions concludes, we extend our gratitude for your contributions to our mission in Israel and Gaza. We appreciate your flexibility and adaptability throughout the deployment and your willingness to support the mission in a variety of ways. While your current assignment ends, please let us know if you are interested in future opportunities to work with U.G Solutions. This is on the 24th of June. I left the next day.
Starting point is 01:31:09 Does that sound like signed by the C-O-O? Oh, so what this whole smear campaign sounds like to me is I'm the only person in their entire construct of a company that, one, has the depth of knowledge that I have of what actually happened and what's going on, but two, can corroborate as an eyewitness, as a human being, as a carbon-based life form, having been on the ground in Gaza, to corroborate all of the video, the video of the guy shooting and then saying, yeha, hell yeah, think you got one. one, that was in that drive that got released to the Israeli government. It's out there. There's no denying it. Watched it. Yeah, so what happened to. Yeah. So what happened to the boy, Amir? Yeah. So what happened to the boy, Amir? Yes, Amir. Interesting. Who was apparently murdered and then your former employers
Starting point is 01:32:21 trotted out a picture claiming he was still alive but it was a different person. Do we know anything about what happened to his body, whether his family knows where... Yeah, so you know, Johnny Moore who claims to be this evangelical last time I checked, you know, we should know
Starting point is 01:32:37 every hair on one's head. God does. Yeah. In their smear package of information, they said, Mr. Aguilar claims that this young boy was killed on the site. Well, here's a picture of him two days later. The picture that they used of a mirror two days later and also the pictures of a mirror are pictures that I took. They used photos that I took to discredit photos that I took.
Starting point is 01:33:08 You can't even wrap your head around it. so the picture here that they said is a mirror is on the first of June at site number four time stamped in my phone because I have the original site number four and site number two are 26 kilometers away through a combat zone that no civilian can traverse between the two so how did a mirror get from site two on the 28th of May to site four on the first of June well he didn't one because he's dead two because it would have been impossible unless somewhere in Gaza they now have the ability to, you know, Star Trek beam people to another location. It would have been impossible. Do we know anything about his family or how that was? So they questioned it, right? So an NGO reached out to me. After the story broke and they said, do you, do you happen to know what site and what day? Well, I do know exactly what site, exactly what day. I even know exactly what time. And I provided that information to them. They immediately energize their NGO network within Gaza to begin looking, backtracking,
Starting point is 01:34:16 Nasser Hospital, backtracking, asking, taking the picture around. Kind of like old on the milk carton days. Yes. And they found, um, they found his mother, his stepmother. His mother and father had both been killed. His father was killed in Israeli airstrike. His mother had been killed. His stepmother has been looking for him since the 28th of May. And that photo that I took of him is the last she'd seen him alive. She now has this photo. I've seen her. I actually yesterday
Starting point is 01:34:48 I had the I had the real special opportunity. I got to talk to her on the phone with a translator. She and I zoomed together and she asked me what did he say? What did he look like?
Starting point is 01:35:04 How was he? And I just told her I was like he's a beautiful boy. happy real strong spirit and she's like do you do you think i'll ever find him and this isn't just me saying this and it's non-verifiable i i talked to her on a interview with an activist group where there were hundreds watching so everybody can verify this how hard it is to tell a mother that her son is dead he was killed in May and yesterday was August and she hasn't seen him nothing she's been looking for him now Johnny Moore would say that's Hamas propaganda so Tony Aguilar who has no contacts really anywhere who's back in the United States managed to orchestrate this this Hamas kabuki theater facade
Starting point is 01:36:09 simply to discredit the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. How arrogant must you be? This is a Christian? This is a Christian evangelist? This boy was killed. And instead of accepting what we can do to change it, I have a great recommendation. Let's not put humanitarian aid food distribution sites
Starting point is 01:36:32 in the middle of combat zones. That would be a great start to not killing innocent people to include, I thought, you know, and again, confirmation. She even said, Amir. She's like, I've been looking for a mirror. I didn't make this up. Touch this boy.
Starting point is 01:36:51 I looked him in the eyes. And what? I thought he was maybe six or seven. He was 10. That's how emaciated he is. Don't put food distribution centers in the middle of combat zones. So my last question is, what other steps should the U.S. government take to make this better and to avoid what you've said a number of times is going to be an international cataclysm when the world sees what's going on in Gaza that the U.S. is supporting and is paying for?
Starting point is 01:37:27 What should the U.S. government do now? Today, Mr. John Ackrey, who I think is the second in command of GHF, second in charge, whatever his title is. He was introduced by Mr. Chapin-Fay, who's their spokesperson, who by the way also has no experience in humanitarian assistance or the military. So for Mr. Chapin-Fay to say that I don't know what I'm talking about in terms of lines of sight or fields of fire, give me a break. He's the spokesman? Shape and Fay is the paid spokesman for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. A spokesman they had to hire and pay once my story broke. So where's he from, do you know?
Starting point is 01:38:08 No idea. I mean, his entire life and background has just been PR. It's insulting. But Mr. John Acreya said, we would like to propose a plan for the UN and for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to work together. No. No.
Starting point is 01:38:31 The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation does not have the capacity. It does not have the logistics. It does not have the experience. It does not have the personnel to do half part or any part of the humanitarian assistance operation. What the United States should do is stop with this rhetoric that the United Nations is giving away all of its food to Hamas. That has been disproven. disproven, re-engage the United Nations, take all that money that we're giving to line the pockets of profiteers who spend most of it on PR firms and spokespersons and lawyers, apparently,
Starting point is 01:39:10 and allow the United Nations to use it to not only expand their operations, but this would be a really good idea. Instead of the idea of sitting and just videotaping and watching UN trucks getting ransacked, perhaps provide some security for them. Just like, so I think it's ironic when Johnny Moore celebrates that not one of our trucks has been attacked. Well, you have them driving on a road that's in an area where there are no Palestinians that live within tens of miles. Armed to the teeth by IDF and armed Americans, of course they're not getting ransacked.
Starting point is 01:39:49 It's almost like you're in the state. of the football field and you're saying, well, I didn't get tackled today. You're not even on the field. So how about we provide some security assistance to the United Nations to go into these sites? Not arming or armed security, just a security presence to assist them in delivery. To empower the United Nations that has doctors and nurses and humanitarian assistance and nutritionists and people that feed people and people that know what they're doing and people that know how many calories come in a meal and how many people how many calories someone needs that can provide water that'd be a great start water the
Starting point is 01:40:34 united the united nations mechanisms should be put back in full force today the united states should stop do not spend another dime on the gaza humanitarian foundation because Because it is not achieving any modicum of a goal of feeding anyone. It is not. It's proven that it's a failure. Why it's a failure? We can dissect that in the annals of history. I've got some ideas, but it's failed.
Starting point is 01:41:03 Have you had any contact with anyone from Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in the last couple weeks? I have never had any contact from anyone within the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation at all, period, ever. so the fact that they can so so bodaciously say that I'm a liar and they've never even spoke to me it's pretty bold I don't know other than other than Mr. Johnny Moore and Mr. Chapman Fay the spokesman I have no idea what human beings are in the Gaza humanitarian foundation much less who who pays the bills much less who pays the bills making yeah who's making what love to see that Well, I think you've done a lot so far. Colonel, thank you very much. And thank you for spending all this time. It's been really happy I can come up here and be in the studio. It's a great experience.
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