The Kindest, Gentlest, Silliest Kid in the US Air Force Just Set Himself On Fire — Why?
Aaron Bushnell, age 25, self-immolated in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington D.C., 25 February 2024 in protest of the Zionist genocide in Gaza
If you’re my age or younger, you have never known a United States that wasn’t propagandized — about nearly everything.
I was a little kid during the Vietnam War protests. Raised by my grandparents, I heard mostly the opinions of people who had served in the Second World War. No one talked about the Korean War: even Korean War vets kept a low profile at that time as the surviving ones still do.
Over 36,000 U.S. troops died in Korea, along with 4 million Koreans, both North and South. There were a few thousand U.N. troops who also died in Korea.
In my late 20s, I considered military service. My first full-time boss was a USAF retired colonel. Many other AF veterans were on our organization’s board or worked as volunteers.
I understood at that time what volunteering meant: I had to be willing to sacrifice my life for my country if needed.
Back at that time, I thought any war in which U.S. troops would be deployed, would be essential to defend our freedoms at home and to protect American lives.
But then I became pregnant with my daughter. I couldn’t go into OTS.
Now a man who is younger than my daughter, a USAF active duty member, has set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. Aaron Bushnell was clear-spoken and full of purpose when he walked to the gates of this embassy, said,
“I will not be complicit in genocide”
prior to standing firmly in front of the gates and igniting the accelerant that burned him alive. His literal last words as he was engulfed in flame were, “Free Palestine!”
I have witnessed my country go from serious discussions of wrongdoing in war, such as the questions regarding the Iraq War (did Saddam Hussein have weapons of mass destruction?) and questions of “Why is our country attacking Afghanistan — why are we there for over 20 years?” to the outrage over the conditions and torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib to blind support for a foreign nation’s mass bombing and imprisonment of over 2 million men, women, and children in Gaza.
I sat with my mouth open as the United States Congress passed a law that stated no U.S. citizen could criticize a foreign country’s genocide.
I watched as my country allocated billions of dollars to a foreign country so it could take over other people’s land.
Now Aaron Bushnell has committed the ultimate act of protest and — I’ve watched the video — made his purpose crystal-clear. He spoke clearly, and his last message via social media, says exactly why he was setting himself on fire.
Many of us like to ask ourselves, “What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?” The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.” — Aaron Bushnell
I have read nothing about Aaron Bushnell’s family, only a few comments from friends who served with him.
One said, “He was the kindest, gentlest, silliest kid in the U.S. Air Force.”
What would lead him to do this? He was obviously not under the influence of drugs or alcohol and was speaking clearly and moving with purpose.
Aaron was very clear. He could not in good conscience participate in and support in the ethnic cleansing genocide of men, women, and children. He followed his conscience to the point that he took his own life in a spectacular way showing extreme physical courage. His calm resolve and planned behavior carried out to the ultimate end of his own collapse in flames and death proves that he was not “mentally ill” as has apparently been stated in U.S. mainstream media and certainly, will be stated and emphasized, along with any possible personal attacks, by Zionist operatives.
I don’t believe in suicide, but I didn’t make this decision: Aaron did.
This is Fine: The World As It Stands
I spoke with my daughter today and she mentioned the awful negative vibe that is out in the world today. She mentioned road rage and the way people treat the staff at the insurance agency where she works.
In the past month, not one, but two middle-aged or older men have cursed me out in situations where they were in the wrong. One man almost hit my car, and instead of apologizing or backing off, rolled his window down and screamed obscenities at me. Our new rescue dog Jack lunged at a man who was jogging near a local fire where we’d also walked over to see how close it might come to our home. The man stated that Jack bit him after he had leaned over suddenly to pet him (keep in mind, this is a shelter rescue who yes, has a biting issue). I apologized, restrained Jack, and looking at the man’s leg, could see no mark. I said, “Well thank goodness, I don’t see a mark.” He launched into a similar foul-mouthed tirade to the man who’d nearly t-boned my car coming out of a driveway while I was waiting at a stop light.
I had to run away from the second man — who only backed off when I said, “Jack didn’t bite you. There’s no reason to use that type of language with me. Would you like to talk that way to me in front of the Sheriff? He is right over there — ” and indeed, the Sheriff was.
When I’ve told others about these incidents, more than a few people have suggested “Those were bad men” (well, duh).
Two bad, evil men just showing their face in a way they had covered up before.
If these men act this way in public, what do they do in private?
Whatever this force is that is surging in the world, it is very difficult to resist. It is making people physically ill. It is making people emotionally ill: it’s overwhelming for the highly-sensitive people among us.
I can’t believe that Aaron Bushnell did what he did. But I understand the thought process that he followed. Did the evil force that is so prevalent in our world today compel him to take his own life?
Or did he sacrifice his own life in a way that we have heard before? A way for which we have an example that many of us believe in and follow.
Did he sacrifice his life following Christ’s example? Or was he following the example of others who knew they risked assassination by evil forces: Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy.
I’ve had white supremacists tell me that John Brown, who died to stop slavery, was a “criminal.”
We will certainly hear that Aaron Bushnell, too, was a criminal: the USAF has already stated that taking a political position is against the UMCJ (Uniform Military Code of Justice). I am not sure there’s anything in the UMCJ about self-immolation.
I didn’t ask myself the same question that Aaron asked when I was in a difficult situation in 2010 and 2011, working an extremely high-stress job for a boss who had been rendered unable to make rational decisions due to serious illness, and who was not going to willingly accept help or step aside. I wasn’t asked to do military service in a corrupt and evil cause. I wasn’t asked to risk my life, just my livelihood and potential future career. At that time, I read about what people did during the WW2 Holocaust. Many people undertook dangerous and life-threatening actions to save Jewish people and others from the WW2 Nazi death camps.
To this day, right now, whenever I say that horrific crimes that took place over 80 years ago are not a justification to re-enact crimes against people today, those who make these statements will attack me in vicious terms, exactly like the two foul-mouthed criminal-seeming men I recently encountered.
U.S. political operatives have returned for the 2024 election season and on behalf of certain individuals, mimic the online behavior of the Israeli Zionist Hasbara (a term for propaganda and abuse that Israelis say is justified and proper).
There will certainly be plenty of Hasbara against Aaron Bushnell.
As I have stated before, these are the literal forces, beliefs, and actions of amoral evil. No matter what is said, the actions show for what they are. Anyone who cannot see that the Israeli Zionists are attacking Gaza and other Palestinian areas (West Bank) and killing indiscriminately, as well as deliberately destroying infrastructure to make the area uninhabitable, by this time is willfully blind. They are not just biased, they are active genocide supporters.
They are as active in their support of genocide as Aaron Bushnell was in his opposition. Yet somehow I doubt that many, if any, who believe the actions of the Israeli Zionists in Gaza are right and justified, would set themselves on fire to defend these actions.
The actions of Zionists in Gaza are about killing others. Not sacrificing one’s self.
What would I have done in answer to Aaron’s question? What actions would I have taken in the times of slavery, Jim Crow, and apartheid in South Africa?
I would do the same as I am right now, though admittedly, in those past times, opposing these institutions cost many people their lives.
I think that is what Aaron Bushnell, at the cost of his life in extreme agony, was trying to show us.
Blessings and healing to his family and friends.
Blessings and healing to our world.
To stop evil, you have to acknowledge it, stand up, and refuse to comply. They cannot kill all of us.
Hearing this, I remembered the Tunisian man who set himself on fire several years ago- whose actions kicked off the Arab Spring. I doubt America would let something like that happen, though.