81 Comments

Thank you for documenting Aaron’s profound act of solidarity. I wrote about him and his heroism, arguing that he was far more lucid than his detractors suggest:

“Some might argue that Aaron was mentally ill. Others will describe his act of protest as suicide. They all would do well to grapple with the lucidity of his thoughts, and his words as he gave away his life to defend others.

Aaron’s self-immolation was neither an act of despair, nor one driven by confusion. It was an act of moral desperation undertaken by a person whose thoughtful concerns deserve to be heard.

Aaron explained his sense of moral urgency. Before lighting himself on fire, he said:

‘My name is Aaron Bushnell, I am an active-duty member of the United States Air Force and I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it's not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.’

These are not the words of someone suffering from illness, but rather those of a lucid being responding to the illness of an ignorant and belligerent civilization that refuses to heed either the demands of international rights or the sacrifices of the veterans who secured them.”

The rest of the post addresses military ethics and international law, and how—from one perspective—Aaron pursued the only route available to him as a servicemember to indicate his dissent from bipartisan support for genocide. https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/p/dont-look-away and noted how

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I feel that Aaron was driven crazy by what he witnessed. Not insane, but so horrified he could not live with his knowledge and had to do what he did. He could NOT live with what was in his heart and head. It was a sacrifice and a deliverance form his pain.

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This man was a fool and he died a fool’s death. Do not glorify this behavior by using words like “solidarity” to describe this pointless waste of life.

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To imagine Aaron's death to have been futile would require presuming it to have been lost on the deaf ears and blind eyes of an ignorant public. Yet—despite the efforts of propagandists from news editors to social media armies & bots—his sacrifice has drawn a sustained global audience.

Your own comment proves the point. You are, after all, addressing his act and defining your own view in seeming (nonsensical) antithesis.

I wonder why anyone would feel so disconnected from humanity to dismiss a young man's sacrifice of a promising life in such cartoonishly dismissive terms? Several possibilities come to mind but I'd rather not guess.

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Human life is sacred, and to throw it away on a symbolic gesture that will help no one is a disgrace. And make no mistake, his sacrifice will help exactly no one. To think otherwise is to misunderstand the world you live in.

That you would frame suicide as a noble act exposes your own callousness. You are glorifying death.

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So you would also say that The Vietnamese Buddhist monks who immolated themselves in protest of the Vietnam Was were throwing their lives away? I think not. I remember their sacrifices well, as do many others, and they played a role in building the movement that ultimately freed Vietnam for Western imperialism, first French, then American.

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Yes, I would say those monks absolutely threw their lives away in a pointless symbolic gesture that accomplished nothing. Their suicides will be remembered as morbid curiosities and nothing more. The Vietnam War was not shortened by one day due to their suicides.

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He was joining, in public, the many many deaths he had witnessed. Deaths that are blown off as "just war" and those dead Palestinians must be hiding the bad guys: Hamas. The IDF is the bad guys. Hamas are freedom fighters.

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He witnessed "pointless waste of"lives. Children killed or wounded with no medical attention....how's THAT for wasted lives??

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Self-immolation is the ultimate way to shine light on evil actions. Unfortunately, the governments of the US and other "developed" countries appear to have reached the stage where no amount of light will awaken them from their dark slumber.

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Not those in power, but a younger generation is awake to what's going on. I think of all those Jewish young people who crowded Grand Central Station with their Not in My Name t-shirts.

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In 1969 I was too afraid to give up my comfy middle class life to go to Canada or to jail to protest the Vietnam war. So I joined up as an Air Force Technician to not be a rifleman in the Infantry. I live with this guilt every day. Now I am75 years old with a good retirement. Air Man Bushnell puts my shame on record.

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It's hard to die for a cause, however noble....but thank you for honouring his choice.

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Why do you feel guilt for a war you did not cause? Do you really believe that your absence from that war would have made one ounce of difference in the outcome of that war? Is there some victim of that war who would have not been victimized if only had avoided enlisting?

Save your guilt for actions you are actually responsible for. Feeling guilt over world affairs you did not cause is a strange combination of self-flagellation and self-importance. You made no difference to that war, you were never really that important, so let that your insignificance free you from guilt.

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My guilt is from not being brave enough to protest or resist that war. that makes me complicit

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The decades of betrayal of Palestine are facilitated by the

decades of hypocrisy by one US President after another, favoring & protecting brutal Zionist racism against the ever more pitiful appeals to "International Law."

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Blame it on their fear of being labeled antisemitic ...and reminded often of the Holocaust....blinded by propaganda and lies from Israel.

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Veterans from all of our wars and their families have passed through my family therapy practice. When we send our young rural and inner city kids into these one-sided wars where they maim and kill civilians on the ground with guns or with napalm, agent orange, phosphorous bombs and cluster bombs....they return with serious PTSD. They see what we are doing to people. Our callous, cynical old men and women in congress could care less since the money rolls like water into their accounts.

Whole families suffer from the shortage of adequate medical care for all of the wounds, missing limbs and brain injuries these men sustain on one, two, three and four tours!

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War is always fought by the poor for the benefit of the rich......but this genocide makes all that glaringly obvious. And yes......the trauma that many of our young men return with should tell us what is obvious........WE ARE NOT BORN TO VIOLENCE...it isn't natural to kill each other.

The hawks of War have to work hard to convince us to do it.......and most return with lifelong damage. It's an unmitigated evil and its long past time we should refuse it.

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I think it is natural to kill one another. ....hasn't it been going on since recorded and made up (the bible) history?...............repeating my comment "After much thought I came to the conclusion that the humans are the worst animals. Worse than rats. No other mammal puts their women and children in risk of death, starvation, gun violence...I could go on. Male mammals either protect the females and offspring or leave them alone. Wars are the result of men having too much free time to F things up. Religions created by men who make men the boss of everything. it's pretty sad. That "god" they created has gone on to another galaxy to avoid this horrible spectacle of what humans are doing to a perfect earth."

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Depends on how we treat each other I suspect.......violent countries believe violence is inevitable, that's why they spread it around. But under good conditions humans far prefer to socialize, enjoy each other's company and make love...

We normalize the negative things we do....because we live in a culture that has been imperialistic, capitalistic and hierarchical for centuries. But given half a chance we'd be far more cooperative than many are..........why is it you think the USA has fought an ideological war against Russia since before the second world war ended???? Why do we demonize people and cultures we know 0 about??

It just might be that without a lot of patriarchal violence, people actually never wanted war...we have it indocrinated into us. The American Empire is good at demonizing those it intends to bomb. And capitalism is good at selling us fear and competition. If it were so natural, we wouldn't have to work so hard to make it so.

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"War is always fought by the poor for the benefit of the rich".

Not entirely true. The power-elite of the Northern states sent the sons to fight in America's Civil War. Joshua Chamberlain was one them as was Robert Gould Shaw. George Herbert Walker Bush was a fighter pilot during the Pacific War (part of WW2).

Since Vietnam, it has been all too true with the exception of some individuals trained at the Academies and through the ROTC. The brunt of burden has fallen on the poor.

War certainly is unmitigated evil. It is far different for tribes to throw rocks at each other and the possession of nuclear weapons. Warfare is unfortunately a part of our behavioral repertoire.

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...talk about wasted lives....told they are being good Americans, brave soldiers....then tossed away, used up...some living on the streets and using drugs to dull the hopelessness.

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These observations are all too true.

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calling it mental illness is to devoid yourself of thoughtful reflection on his anguish.

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Fear is the primary instrument of control used by every oppressor. The terrorist state of Israel has employed extreme violence, since before it officially became a state, in an attempt to demoralize and instill craven hopelessness in the indigenous population. It has never succeeded and never will. Nothing short of annihilating every last Palestinian will end their resistance to absolute evil. Israel knows this and acts with determination to make the most of what opportunity has afforded it on 7 October. It will likely pay a fatal price for overplaying it's hand. Isolated and reviled on the world stage, economically hampered and eventually abandoned by it's chief benefactor; when it becomes more of a geopolitical hindrance than useful to the United States. Aaron Bushnell's ultimate act of spiritual and moral resistance embodies Palestinians inherent strength in the face of this radical evil.

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Chris

The world is getting crazier by the minute. When will we turn this around.

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Jazzme, my answer is : never. After much thought I came to the conclusion that the humans are the worst animals. Worse than rats. No other mammal puts their women and children in risk of death, starvation, gun violence...I could go on. Male mammals either protect the females and offspring or leave them alone. Wars are the result of men having too much free time to F things up. Religions created by men who make men the boss of everything. it's pretty sad. That "god" they created has gone on to another galaxy to avoid this horrible spectacle of what humans are doing to a perfect earth.

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Yup.depressingly right on. The earth needs a reboot less Homo sapiens

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Unfortunately, your views of other animals do not fit with observations from nature. Male lions are well known to engage in infanticide. https://lionrecoveryfund.org/the-perilous-life-of-male-lions/

Jane Goodall's research on chimpanzees,ever so many decades ago, recognized that chimps engage in warfare and murder . https://news.janegoodall.org/2018/07/11/chimps-star-wars-power-show-disgust-feces-benefit-play/

It may be comforting to live in concert with Rousseau's belief in the uncorrupted and noble savage (bon sauvage), it is not an accurate model of human behavior any more than a belief in the superior moral behavior within the animal kingdom.

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There must be a permanent ceasefire in Gaza in order to comply with the ICJ ruling. Not with Palestinians suffering under oppressive conditions, but as a place where all live with peace and equality. It is time for Pope Francis to do more than talk. He must go to Gaza and make a stand for peace and freedom.

Please sign the petition and share widely.

https://chng.it/CRQ7qw4Gzn

Code pink

https://www.codepink.org/cnngaza?utm_campaign=12_15_pali_update_alert_3&utm_medium=email&utm_source=codepink

Let us also support UNRWA. If our governments won’t act in accordance with humanity, then we will. https://www.unrwausa.org/donate Let us do it to honor Aaron Bushnell, or in memory of Hind Rajab.

These are a few small things we can do. If we can do more, let us do more.

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We've sent money directly to UNRWA already, and encourage all of us to do so.....air drops from guilty cowards like Canada and the US of A are no substitute for believing Israel's unsubstantiated accusations...a direct donation is a way of separating oneself from such craven cowards.

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I just watched the protest streamed live by Status Coup on YouTube. One thing I did not notice was any signs calling for a No Fly Zone! I think that needs to be a main call going foward in all protests, starting now. If you are going to a protest, please make a sign with that message.

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No only no fly zone, but divest, sanction and boycott.

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Aaron Bushnell is a member of the United States Air Force who has allowed himself to fall victim to the woke ideology and the progressive propaganda of a demonic agenda that has long been predicted in the Bible. That prediction is – that God will not stand with those who are against Israel and His people, the Jews.

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I read the entire Bible. The temple was destroyed as Jesus predicted it would be. The Jews were destroyed by the Roman’s. False prophets these white Europeans are putting on airs pretending to be descendants of Abraham

Jesus said that Judaisms time was ended.

As the temple is within you

Most Christianity in America is a fraud to prosperity gospel of the money changers

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Shame on you for knowing so much about a young man you've never met. Far better to bow you head in a moment of silence and admit you'd never have the moral courage to do anything so principled. It might be hard to understand, but Buddhist monks did the same thing protesting the violence of the American invasion of Viet Nam. Name calling is no substitute for such extreme courage and conviction.

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WHAT?...."God will not stand with those who are against Israel and His people, the Jews."

"God" is OK with Jews treating their human prisoners like vermin? ....... Nice.

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God is also not good with these lies about Jews...

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The mega lie is that there is any god at all. Never was. Just made up explanations for the unknowable stuff like death, storms...etc. Then men created power hungry clubs like the Vatican. ...and. all the other religions with a few exceptions. Men could see what an intimidating feature the God concept was: Let's a find a way to package it and sell it to the masses. ...with rules about what the women can//can't/must do and get free services and donations of filthy lucre for our fancy accommodations and robes. Why does the Vatican side with tyrants? Because they are in the same boat. ......What a sad turn of human affairs. Fighting over whose religion is the right one.

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“Yahwehs problem was he thought he was God” Joseph Campbell

Yahweh in theory was an Elohim of which there are twelve

They are above the archangels

So several levels down on the spiritual hierarchy form God

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Joseph Campbell,"Hero w/ a thousand faces"....I took a course after graduating, compliments of a Rutgers audit free deal. I said that before the course, I didn't believe in a god, after that I "believed" in all of them....it's important myology. Joseph Campbell: a NYC boy who "lived" in the Museum and Natural History which was near his home.

LOVE that man and his NYC accent.

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I am a spiritual person as I am a born mystic

Shadows on the wall

Each person has there own experiences and needs their own formulations

Glad you had time to study these things

My education was technical but have been recently doing a lot of reading

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Agree… religion was created to control people that can’t help themselves.

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Religion answers questions that cannot otherwise be answered and provides foundation that corrects for destructive moral drift. Spirituality is a human need, it will be filled with false and fantastic religious beliefs if true religion is rejected. I am guessing that your adopted false religion believes men can get pregnant.

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Well I must say you guess wrong. I don't believe men can get pregnant no matter what he does to his body. I have no adopted a religion at all... so you can call me an atheist. I read my statement, I said religion was created for people that needed to be controlled because they can't seem help themselves without authorities. Spirituality is not religion. If you want to see it as false or fantasy... then that is how you want to fulfill your life.

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It's very funny to read arguments about god. I agree that many can not "help themselves" ...Life is loaded with problems we can't control..... Why are others rich and others very poor?.... why were black people slaves in the USA.?...why do loved children die? It must be "god's will". Why do sports team think God will help them win a game. Such nonsense.. If there is a god, why are people being so disrespectful to expect God to listen to prayers for stupid stuff....like football!

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THIS GLORIFICATION OF BUSHNELLS ACT OF INSANITY IS DEPLORABLE. YOU ARE

ENCOURAGING OTHERS TO DO THE SAME. BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS. THE PALESTINIAN CAUSE HAS DESCENDED INTO A DEATH CULT FEATURING SUICIDE BOMBINGS AND SELF IMMOLATION. SICK STUFF.

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He WAS DRIVEN TO AN INSANE ACT BY WITNESSING INSANITY; THE IDF SLAUGHTERING INNOCENTS.

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Some people are calling this an act of suicide........you are wrong!

RIP Aaron

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I feel an anti tax revolution is coming to America

The second revolutionary war of the 99 percent against the one percent and Washington DC

It will be epic

Get your popcorn

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It might be epic, but where do you sit that you can imagine its going to be an entertainment?

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Yes that is the question lol

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David Lentz, propaganda will join the MAGA crowd with the 1%.

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Elon is trying to become a MAGA crowd leader. He and Peter Thiel as per what I have heard are South Africans. So is a possibility there I guess. Was reading Hannah Arendt Origins of Totalitarianism about the Boers. I am concerned about totalitarianism arising here in USA through the state department and other agencies not the political parties

It’s fascinating to watch it in real time

All Hannah Arendts attributes of totalitarianism due not exist yet but we are close

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I have a feeling that the natural human state is towards totalitarianism. Less having to make decisions.

I'm going to research Hannah Arendts attributes of totalitarianism. I need a list; I'm already reading several books: Gaza, GOD, The Last Million,,,etc. plus all these substacks.

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Another bibliophile lol. I am currently reading about 10 books in parallel I guess I have adult ADHD from childhood trauma so I switch back and forth two pages here two pages there. Schopenhauer writes very beautifully. Am 80 percent of the way through Hannah Arendts tome. She viewed Stalin and Hitler as the only true totalitarians up to that time 1963. Versus dictators

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I WISH there was no internet. Then I read much much more and would follow one author or one idea from book to book. Now the information that I get interested in is.... a bit promiscuous. This and that...whatever catches my attention. In the past I didn't even read newspapers or watch TV. However, the Gaza thing has been my main interest since Oct 7. I majored in Literature because it was primary sources and great teachers. BA nights while raising 3 kids in the '60-70's. Now, I am playing catch up on history and politics: 2 topics I thought were useless. Plus: too many names dates, places and "facts".

........Here's a question of a sort. When I say anything about the Gaza thing, I am told, why do you bother with it, you can't change it. Do you ever hear anything like that?

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Well that’s a tough question. I have become very interested in Rudolf Steiner ideas which involve reincarnation. Within that there is a consciousness beyond us. With higher spiritual beings. As we evolve across lifetimes we become more interested in the world so to speak. And our thoughts do matter as per the higher beings. So you may be concerned because you are on that path. And even your thoughts do matter. And your prayers matter

Just my humble opinion

Humans are improving although it’s a slow process

Also we reconnect with the same souls across multiple lifetimes as need to resolve things not completed

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Suicide as protest is always and everywhere and act of stupidity. You are given one life in this universe, to throw it away on an empty symbolic gesture can only be described as the action of a fool.

Do not glorify this behavior by framing it as moral courage. He wasted his life for absolutely nothing. Do not encourage others to follow in this fool’s footsteps.

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Mar 4·edited Mar 4

Beautifully interpreted by Eunice Wong. The partnership of Chris Hedges and Eunice Wong weaves a moving tribute to Aaron Bushnell.

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