The airman, who filmed the incident and could be heard yelling “Free Palestine,” was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries after collapsing to the ground.
The U.S. Air Force member who set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., in an apparent protest against the Israel-Hamas war has died, according to a U.S. official.
Next of kin notification is continuing, so the Air Force won’t release his name until 24 hours after the final notification is complete.
The District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Service Department responded to a call about a person on fire outside the embassy just before 1 p.m. Sunday, and found the flames extinguished by the Secret Service’s uniformed division.
his last words were:
“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’m 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… FREE PALESTINE!”
I dislike this. I’ve seen first hand what serious burns do to people, both in the immediate and long term. Imo, this is there should be no speech louder than this, but it just kinda gets an “oh, damn, really? Man. What’s on the next channel?” reaction. I dislike that people resort to this when they’re going to get ignored, and I dislike that it largely is ignored except for a fleeting moment of sensational headlines.
The problem is, as far as I see it, that this doesn’t change minds. Thousands of children are dead now. Unless you’re totally ignorant of that, in which case you will be totally ignorant of why he killed himself in this manner, it’s not going to make you suddenly care about Palestine when exponentially more dead children who didn’t die by their own hand will not.
Or discredit him as a libtard crazy. That is what people on the other side of this argument have been saying. I hate this world.
I wish I could say I was surprised.
no speech louder than this
It’s loud about the strength of this guy’s conviction but it provides no actual argument or information. I don’t think it’s cause to change one’s opinion about Biden’s foreign policy one way or another. In fact, I’d go further and say that it probably should be ignored as much as possible in order to avoid motivating other people to do the same thing.
I disagree. Fairly certain it got politicians attention. When your own soldiers are standing outside of your house setting themselves on fire it’s probably best to pay attention to the message.
It wasn’t “soldiers”, it was one guy. One person who wasted their life, instead of lobbying for what they wanted.
Now he’ll never get to vote, donate, or campaign for what he believed in. He actually hurt his cause in the long run.
“No dumb bastard ever won a war by going out and dying for his country. He won it by making some other dumb bastard die for his country.”
– General George S. Patton
We already know the arguments. All that is left is for us to weigh it for ourselves. What this man did was heavy and affects that weighing process.
Self immolation started the Arab Spring.
We have no idea what still happen.
This was an active duty servicemember. I share your pessimism that anything will change, but I don’t think Biden can NOT comment on this. That should at least drive awareness. I’m sorry I have nothing less hollow than that to offer.
“Imo, this is there should be no speech louder than this”
I really don’t know what you were trying to say there, but you managed to fuck it up so badly it makes no sense.
“Imo, this is there should be no speech louder than this”
I really don’t know what you were trying to say there, but you managed to fuck it up so badly it makes no sense.
That’s an awfully rude response to not being able to extrapolate this from the quoted bit:
“A man felt so deeply that this was wrong, and so powerless to get the attention of anyone who could even consider doing anything to help, that he doused himself in gasoline and burned himself to death in public, leaving behind his family and everything he cared about. Maybe people should pay attention to such a strongly sent message, and consider whether there are valid reasons that someone might feel so strongly about this topic.”
Next of kin notification is continuing, so the Air Force won’t release his name until 24 hours after the final notification is complete.
But he live-streamed it and said his name. He is Aaron Bushnell, a brave man who knew he wouldn’t survive the protest he felt he needed to carry out.
I cried when I watched the video. The man inhaling lungfuls of flame and smoke to chant “Free Palestine!” was painful. I hope his family may find some small comfort in the pride they should feel for his courage.
Comfort? Their loved one is dead. And for what? It would be hypocritical of me to disagree with monks doing it.
All these comments are so okay with it. Like oh well, it was for a good cause! No it fucking ain’t? This is some fucked up glorification of martyrs when in reality, all we accomplished is more pain. His family won’t recover from this, ever.
But hey! All Israel has to do is stop the offensive and all will be dandy! Oh? Ignore those daily non stop dumb fired missiles and if they attack again? Oh well. What’s another 1000 people killed or raped?
I’m sick of people pretending this is an easy fix. As long as hamas exist, Israel won’t stop. Cease fire fixes nothing. But no one here sees past the tip of their nose. Same people were chanting to allow immigrants in because we fucked them up decades ago, because the system can take it! And now will complain about the state of the country, the shortages of food… I have a friend advocating for supplying Africa with means to farm instead of investing into our own farming so we can buy the food from Africa since we can afford it!
I’m just so tired of stupid people. Absolutely zero foresight and jump at first upvoted comment like it’s gospel.
All Israel has to do is stop the offensive and all will be dandy! Oh? Ignore those daily non stop dumb fired missiles and if they attack again? Oh well. What’s another 1000 people killed or raped?
You’re acting like there’s no middle ground between “do nothing” and “murder many thousands of Palestinian women and children (and men who have nothing to do with Hamas).”
Collective punishment is a war crime. Bombing indiscriminately, sniping EMTs and 6-year-old girls, killing people waving white flags with their hands raised just trying to help their families evacuate, telling people to leave their homes with barely any notice and then bombing not only their homes but also the places they told them to evacuate to?
These are not the behaviors of a nation concerned with self-defense. These are the behaviors of a nation trying to eliminate a population.
And all this does is create more extremism. If you managed to survive your family being killed and your home blown up, your entire life being destroyed, when you and your family were just trying to peacefully live your lives, I imagine you’d find it difficult not to wish for the deaths of your oppressors.
I’m sick of people pretending this is an easy fix. As long as hamas exist, Israel won’t stop. Cease fire fixes nothing.
Cease fire stops the bleeding. If we’re being charitable and we decide to take Israel’s obvious bullshit at face value, a ceasefire lets them re-evaluate their targets and lets their intelligence have a chance to actually find Hamas rather than indiscriminately murdering an order of magnitude more civilians than Hamas did. And if we’re not being charitable, a ceasefire makes them stop murdering civilians in revenge for a terrorist attack.
You’re right, I let “better” be the enemy of a perfect solution which likely doesn’t exist in this mess.
Gaza is going to be beyond alienated, if hamas strikes again and they will… The next follow up will be absolute.
Situation is fucked no matter how I look at it. But cease fire would buy Gaza more time, Hamas will strike again and then the wrath is going to be 10x worse. Do you agree or is that too pessimistic?
I appreciate your time to spell it out like that, that did strike home.
It’s horrible that someone feels this situation is so dire that they need to resort to this.
However, I also don’t know that this will achieve anything any more than it did in Vietnam.
Aaron Bushnell is a hero and understood what is at stake. I wish people stop trying to downplay his actions as being mentally ill.
Jan Palach self immolated in Prague to protest the invasion of Soviet forces at the end of the Prague Spring… there are monuments to him around the city. It seems lighting youself on fire aint what it used to be
Protesting Russian war crimes means you are a hero and should be remembered forever.
Protesting Western war crimes means you are a mentally ill tankie and need to get off Twitter.
I’ve seen people on Reddit blaming “leftist circlejerk holes” for “radicalizing” him (apparently Aaron had a Reddit account)
I felt the urge to get off Reddit more than ever.
I’m reading your comment right now as a lifelong reddit guy abandoning the site for here because of that. Hi
Poor guy. I admire his courage and conviction to protest this genocide, and I cannot imagine how painful that must have been.
Rest in Power. I pray we can somehow ensure your actions aren’t in vain.
…Well good. Living through stuff like that is awful.
Free Palestine. RIP Aaron Bushnell.
RIP, I respect his anti war ideology but people shouldn’t be hurting themselves to make a point. I highly doubt this is going to make the impact he thought it was going to do. He might have had mental health issues and felt suicidal.
Sure made a hell of an impact on me.
This form of protest goes back a long way - famously by Buddhist monks during the Vietnam war.
It’s also very similar to hunger strikes, in my opinion. There was Bobby Sands and his comrades, of course. There were hunger strikes protesting the brutal conditions at Guantanamo Bay, resulting in force feeding techniques condemned as torture by the international community.
Do all of the people performing acts of self harm in protest to bring attention to a situation they consider intolerable suffer from mental health issues? Do people who join the Marines and put their lives at risk in the infantry because they think they’re “defending their country” have mental health issues? Do drone pilots, who in no way put themselves at risk of harm but who absolutely and knowingly end up killing arbitrary civilians have mental health issues?
If you ask me, I’d say yes to all of those. I’d say the same about politicians who pass laws to ban medical care to patients, and I’d say the same about the people who vote for them.
So people protesting via self-immolation, protesting via hunger strike, joining the military in a role that risks death are suicidal. People joining the military in a way that causes death, or who pass legislation that causes death, or who elect politicians who pass legislation that causes death are homicidal.
What should we do about all of that?
Self immolation started the Arab Spring.
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Undoubtedly this man suffered from mental health issues, that were only exacerbated by social media echocambers. Please remember that other users dont care about your well being. r/acebush1 You can see by his post history, what kind of mental state he was in before this happened.
This young gentleman could have done more good being alive and continued his message than an instant death stunt.
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Are you a troll or something? Would you say the same thing to the Buddhist mini who did the exact same thing for similar reasons? This isn’t tiktok, his family is probably traumatized but this man died for believing in something which is more than most of us can say.
Oh so now are we supposed to praise people who are mentally ill to such an extent that they are setting themselves on fire, just because it’s for a “cause” you support? What’s the next step, praise Hamas suicide bombers? You fucking absolute hypocrite.
