On the morning of February 25th, Aaron Bushnell, a 25-year-old active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force, posted on Facebook a link to the video live-streaming service Twitch with a caption that read, quote, “Many of us like to ask ourselves, 'What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?' The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now,” he wrote.

The Life & Death of Aaron Bushnell: U.S. Airman Self-Immolates Protesting U.S. Support for Israel in Gaza

An interview by Amy Goodmann with Levi Pierpont (former U.S. Air Force member, conscientious objector and friend of Aaron Bushnell) and Ann Wright (retired U.S. Army colonel and former U.S. State Department official)

February 28, 2024

In an act that has captured the attention of the world, Aaron Bushnell, a 25-year-old active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force, set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington Sunday to protest Israel’s assault on Gaza and U.S. support for the military campaign. Bushnell, who live-streamed the action, said, “I will no longer be complicit in genocide,” before lighting himself on fire and repeatedly shouted “Free Palestine” as he was engulfed in the flames. He was pronounced dead in the hospital later that day. Democracy Now! speaks with Bushnell’s friend and conscientious objector Levi Pierpont, who says his friend’s death was not a suicide but was about using his life to send a message for justice. “We have to honor the message that he left,” says Pierpont, who says Bushnell died “to get people’s attention about the genocide that’s happening in Palestine.” Ann Wright, retired U.S. Army colonel and former diplomat, lays out the history of self-immolation to protest war and how Bushnell’s act could impact U.S. policy for the war on Gaza. “It was an act of courage, an act of bravery, to call attention to U.S. policies,” says Wright, who offers support to Pierpont and other veterans advocating for peace live on air.

Read more: https://www.democracynow.org/2024/2/28/aaron_bushnell_self_immolation_gaza_protest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f8MYAF1L9M

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See also:

The ongoing genocide in Gaza

Febraury 27, 2024

https://afsaneyebahar.com/2024/02/27/20698364/

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Aaron Bushnell’s Divine Violence

Aaron Bushnell’s self-immolation was ultimately a religious act, one that radically delineates good and evil and calls us to resist.

By Chris Hedges

February 29, 2024

https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/aaron-bushnells-divine-violence

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