Laundering Hamas Propaganda

Do not be deceived. Lt. Col. Tony Aguilar rebuts any presumption of personal credibility.

Lt. Col. (Ret.) Tony Aguilar has been much in the news lately. Because of his background both as a West Point graduate and former Special Forces (Green Beret) officer, I was initially inclined to grant him a presumption of competence and credibility. I regret to report that he has rebutted that presumption.

Aguilar has made highly inflammatory and well publicized accusations of war crimes against both this country and the Israeli Defense Forces. In his more-than-an-hour-long tongue bath by Tucker Carlson, he set the tone:

I have never witnessed anything as brutal, destructive, violent. And I would say that, that that steps far over our international laws of, of, of how we persecute wars and how we engage in warfare. We've, we've long departed from that standard. And America America's a part of it.

I witnessed Palestinian parents, men and mothers and fathers carrying their dead children in their arms, skeletons. I witnessed that. I've witnessed people that have come onto the sites that you can see that they are just completely emaciated and starving.

Although Aguilar is a bit disjointed at times, he summed up many of his charges at end of his Carlson interview:

When you shoot at civilians with tanks, mortars, rifles, machine guns, When you purposely displace the population, When you purposely use razor wire, again, razor wire banned by the Geneva Convention for the use of civilian purposes for hospitals, water points and distribution sites. And that's what we're using. Razor wire.

A transcript of the interview is available at this link. Caution: It has the usual errors attributable to an AI transcription of an audio interview. Unless otherwise noted, the quotes in this article are from this transcript, but edited with assistance from the video when necessary for accuracy.

Aguilar’s short-lived employment as a security contractor in Gaza

Aguilar was first employed in mid-May by UG Solutions, a security subcontractor for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). He arrived in Israel on May 19. Less than a month later, on June 13, he submitted his resignation letter.

Subsequently his new career is focused on making a media tour to publicize his allegations of war crimes.

The Geneva Convention

Before getting too much into the meat (baloney) of Aguilar’s accusations, for a better understanding it is useful to give a very broad but brief overview of the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols. Aguilar has a rather simplistic view:

There is an actual definition there. . . . There are things that by definition, violate the protocols of the Geneva Convention, violate the arms of long con the laws of armed conflict. It's, they're black and white. It's like reading a driver's ed manual, like stop at a red light.

In fact, the Geneva Conventions are lengthy and complex. The original “Geneva Conventions” of which we speak today were passed in 1949 as four separate Conventions.¹ These four Conventions include 429 separate Articles. In 1977 and 2005 there were three supplements to the Conventions. These supplements are referred to as “Additional Protocols.” They include an additional 147 Articles. There is no fourth Protocol.

This article will not attempt a detailed legal analysis of the Geneva Conventions or the Additional Protocols. International lawyers write lengthy and learned articles on them. I will address briefly some of the provisions that Aguilar claims are very simple and easy to understand and apply, “like reading a driver’s ed manual.”

War crimes

The theme of Aguilar’s repeated attacks is that the IDF and U.S. personnel are engaged in numerous war crimes. Here’s a look at some of his specific allegations.

War crime — Displacing civilians

It is hardly a secret that civilians in Gaza have been displaced for a variety of reasons. Some displace themselves as they flee the fighting. The IDF displaces others for their own safety due to combat operations. The U.S. and countless other militaries have done this literally for centuries. But Aguilar argues that this is another “war crime.”

It is a war crime to intentionally displace the civilian population on the battlefield in combat operations. . . . They [the IDF] say we're displacing the population to move them to do combat operations. That's a war crime.”

Aguilar assures us that this supposed “war crime” is forbidden “In the fourth protocol, the Geneva Convention.” As noted above, their is no “fourth protocol” to the Geneva Convention.

Aguilar also is dead wrong about substance. Although the forced transfer of civilians to another country is generally prohibited, the Fourth Geneva Convention expressly provides,

Nevertheless, the Occupying Power may undertake total or partial evacuation of a given area if the security of the population or imperative military reasons so demand.

Q.E.D.

War crime — using razor wire as an obstacle

According to Aguilar,

There's a difference between barbed wire, concertina wire and razor wire and razor wire specifically condemned to [sic] the Geneva Convention. Civilian sites don't use it.

Razor wire is widely used by all militaries, including the U.S. It is neither “condemned” nor outlawed by the Geneva Convention. And Aguilar is wrong again when he tries to hype its dangers by saying, “Civilian sites don’t use it.” Presumably he claims it is not used for civilians because, as he told Democracy Now!, “Razor wire is designed to maim and kill.” Home Depot, for example, would not want to sell to someone to fence their garden or business lot with it.

One problem with Aguilar’s scare tactic is that Home Depot does sell it for garden fencing! (Check the link.) So do construction sites all over the country. It is difficult to grant Aguilar any presumption of innocent mistake in the face of such blatant misrepresentations.

In New York not Gaza. Razor wire atop a chain link fence.

War crime — Targeting and shooting at civilians

In a July 25 interview with the BBC, Aguilar claimed,

I witnessed the Israeli Defense Forces shooting AT the crowds of Palestinians. I witnessed the Israeli Defense Forces firing a main gun tank round from the Merkava tank into a crowd of people, destroying a car of civilians that were simply driving away from the site.

In his interview with Tucker Carlson, Aguilar modified that inflammatory claim a little, but inconsistently. He said at some points that the American contractors “shoot at them at their feet over their heads in the air, just like the IDF do.” But at other points he reiterated his claim that they were not just firing warning shots but were “targeting” and shooting “at” the civilian refugees.

“That's a war crime firing at the civilians to, to control the population. . . Okay, well, targeting civilians with lethal ammunition to control the population verbatim is a war crime.”

So, who do you believe? Aguilar or Aguilar?

War crime — Shooting at civilians with artillery and other heavy weapons

In his BBC interview, Aguilar alleged:

I witnessed war crimes. I witnessed war crimes by the Israeli defense forces without a doubt, using artillery rounds, mortar rounds, firing tank rounds into unarmed civilians. It’s a war crime.

In his interview with Tucker Carlson, Aguilar doubled down on his blood libel, saying, “The IDF shoot at them, machine guns, mortars, tank rounds, artillery.”

If the IDF were shooting innocent civilians willy-nilly with artillery, mortars, high velocity 105 mm tank rounds, and machine guns, the bodies of hundreds of these allegedly skeleton-like starving civilians would be littering the landscape. Given the ubiquity of cellphones, the chances that this happened and that gruesome photos of the carnage somehow have never come to light, are less than zero.

War crime — Locating relief sites in a combat zone

In an interview with the left-wing Democracy Now! Aguilar tells us that the intent of the IDF and GHF regarding the starving refugees is similar to using a field illegally baited with corn to lure waterfowl and then kill them. He charges that the relief supply sites are “designed to lure, bait, aid and kill.” One of his claims in support of this is that the distribute humanitarian aid distribution sites are located in combat zones or even with IDF units. He is unclear about whether these distribution sites are co-located with IDF units, or just near them, or “co-nearly located with an IDF combat unit,” whatever that may mean. But to Aguilar, it doesn’t matter. Whatever he means is that any of these possibilities is a “war crime verbarim”:

Why, why are you distributing humanitarian aid in the middle of a combat zone? It's a question that needs to be asked and needs to be answered, I think.

* * * *

We established secure distribution sites to deliver and distribute humanitarian aid, not only co-located with Israeli combat units, but located in an active combat zone. I, I can't make it clearer to, to the leadership there and, and to the lawyers that I've spoke with at, at GHF and UG solutions, that that is a war crime verbatim outta the protocols of the Geneva Convention, which last time I checked the United States was still a signatory to, and the laws of international laws in law, international humanitarian law. Clearly there's no question about it.

I should also note what Aguilar never even hints at — the relief resupply points are located near IDF units precisely so that they can provide security to prevent Hamas from stealing the supplies.

We are just like the Nazis

Aguilar cannot pass up trying out the Nazi meme:

So when, when we're doing these things, it's, we're just egregiously violating international standards. The standards that we, that we as Americans expect now, people were hung at Nuremberg for things like this, literally things like this. Shooting at prisoners, yes, shooting at prisoners.

With his comparison to Nazis tried at Nuremberg, Aguilar has locked in his credentials as a true “progressive.” Of course, the Jews are like Nazis! Hundreds of “elites” at our Ivy League universities assure us of that and who is Aguilar to disagree with them?

What did Aguilar exclude?

Aguilar’s interviews and comments overflow with accusations of war crimes and supposed violations of the Geneva Conventions. Indeed, that is almost all he talks about. But he neglected to mention any violations of the Geneva Conventions by Hamas. Could it be that they are somehow too confusing or obscure? You be the judge. Here is the text of Convention IV, Article 34: “The taking of hostages is prohibited.” That’s it. Its about as simple and straightforward as the drivers’ ed manual that teaches us to ‘stop at a red light.’ But somehow Aguilar missed that. Somehow.

But this reminds us that Aguilar was right about one thing. There are indeed skeletal-like humans being subjected to torture and unspeakable horrors. At the very end of his interview with Tucker Carlson, which lasted almost an hour and a half, Aguilar devoted nine sentences to the events of October 7. Nine.

This poor man digging his own grave in a Hamas tunnel could shed a little more light on that, but Aguilar does not mention his plight or the fact that holding him and others hostage is a blatant and clear violation of both the Geneva Conventions and the Supplemental Protocols.

Stay tuned for the next installment.

Aguilar professes to be apolitical. But he has been on a whirlwind tour of anti-Semitic and far-left venues to get his message out. I have been unable to find any interview he has given to a adequately prepared questioner who anyone who asks probing questions and does not swallow unsupported propagandistic responses. In the next installment on this topic, I will discuss the worshipful joy with which Aguilar’s flights of fancy have been embraced by the ancien régime media and terrorist-friendly politicians, including Senators Bernie Sanders and Chris Van Hollen.

1. The four original 1949 Conventions govern (I) the treatment of wounded and sick in the field, (II) treatment of wounded, sick, and shipwrecked at sea, (III) treatment of prisoners of war, and (IV) protection of civilians.