Holy shit. (CW: Self immolation but it's a US troop)

For a full minute, police (unknown sector, maybe fed or DC) see him, say “May I help you sir?” and as he’s on fire scream at him to get on the ground but do not otherwise engage. One cop appears with a gun drawn on the man after he collapses, still consumed by flames.

An American Tale

It's incredible just how fearful US cops are. The training must be pure psychological torture.
- It's a thousand hours of classes where people tell you about all the ways you can be stabbed and how every single person you see is a threat and how you have to have a "warrior mindset". They get it drilled into their head that they're an occupying force in hostile territory, in part because all of the instructors are former occupiers of Afghanistan, Iraq etc. edit: and of course Israeli occupiers of Palestine.
- it's a bunch of fat Israeli serial killers doing krav maga and pepper spraying you and telling you how every single brown person will kill you if you don't kill them first
- I knew someone who was in the US military who had PTSD despite never seeing live combat, AFAIK. The conditioning is unbelievable.
- That’s why there’s such a big gap between how nonviolent most cops’ day jobs are and how terrified they are at everything. The training is PTSD soup. If you see a dead child, imagine it was your child. If someone enters a room, imagine them killing you.
Sir, sir I have tactically ascertained that you appear to be engulfed by a hot substance that may be fire, SIR
- MAY I HELP YOU SIR i scream at the burning meat, my finger quivering on the trigger
Surprised they didn't try to shoot him to put out the flames, average thumb cop intelligence level

Yeah I just watched the video and I just gotta say massive fuck you to all the people who shit on this dude or just write him off as "a troop." He opens up the video and says he's about to engage in "an extreme act of protest" but "compared to what people in Palestine have been experiencing at the hands of their colonizers, it's not extreme at all" and then lights himself on fucking fire.

If you watch that and don't have even the slightest bit of empathy or think that he is not in any way a comrade, there is something wrong with you

Yeah he shouldn't have joined the military, yeah he shouldn't have killed himself, but jesus fucking christ people that just makes it more tragic.

Seconded. Anyone who watches that and doesn't have some empathy for what he's trying to do, to bring attention to the victims of Israel and the US, is seriously fucked.
I can't find the video

Support the troop

Hey?! What about dorner?
- Back the blue (singular)
- Dude used ideology as a mask to justify killing the family of the dude who represented him in his trial. The downed officers were incidental.
all troops are bastards always

all the news articles articles aren't admitting that he was protesting the genocide in gaza.

One I read quickly mentioned him then pivoted to talking about environmentalist protesters who have self immolated in the past for over half the article. Others mention no motive at all and are just a couple sentences. One said "it's unclear if this is related to Israel's military action in Gaza".

Goddamn I hate "journalists". Lying hacks who take clear and easy to understand events and twist them into nothingness

Just heard NPR report this as "His reason for doing so is still unknown." How? He said why he was doing it!

He literally screamed his reasons while he was burning, filthy lying libs, not an ounce of shame in them
- https://www.npr.org/2024/02/25/1233810136/fire-man-israeli-embassy-washington
  A man set himself on fire outside Israeli Embassy in D.C.
  A man is in critical condition after setting himself on fire in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., on Sunday afternoon, according to multiple law enforcement agencies.
  The Air Force said the man was an active duty airman.
  The U.S. Secret Service said it was responding to reports of an individual experiencing a possible medical or mental health emergency. Local police arrived around 1 p.m. ET.
  The fire has since been extinguished. The Israeli Embassy in D.C. said none of its staff were injured.
  Vito Maggiolo, a spokesperson for D.C. Fire and EMS, said the man has been transported to the hospital, where he has "critical life threatening injuries."
  As of Sunday evening, NPR was not able to independently verify the man's identity or motives.
  Andrew Leyden, a freelance journalist based in D.C., told NPR he saw burn marks near the Israeli Embassy's lawn, where the embassy had placed flags to represent the hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7.
  Lynn Sweet, the Washington bureau chief at the Chicago Sun-Times, wrote on X that there was a growing police presence outside the Israeli Embassy earlier in the afternoon, including local law enforcement searching a vehicle out of "precaution."
  Posted at 6:53 PM, well after the details were available
They are going to weaponize the traumatic footage of being burned alive to pull some bullshit, "the footage is extremely disturbing, so for the viewers' mental wellbeing, we've faithfully transcribed this mentally disturbed man's final words." The White House transcripts cover up Biden's brain turning into soup all the fucking time, and they'll probably do it here too if they can't get away with simply ignoring it.
- [Unintelligble]
Who do you believe, your lying eyes and ears or the neutral reporters of NPR?
- The concept of compassion, solidarity, and humanity are lost on liberals as genuine beliefs instead of decorative and performative slogans. They are not so much as being misleading the public as to Bushnell's motivations; they are alien to the concepts of outrage and moral conviction.
NPR TO THE

Holy fuck, amerikkkan journalism is pure fucking propaganda, usa today's article says "Local and Federal officials have declined to say whether this was a form of protest"

It's not even the first one. This is the second, recent, self immolation outside an Israeli embassy in the US
- Uh, fact check finds this one FALSE, the other one was outside an Israeli consulate, not an embassy. Sorry, Kiddo.
Nah he lit himself on fire because he was feeling cold
The balls of u$a propaganda...
Guy who self-immolates just for no particular reason

Someone self-immolated in front of the Israeli consulate in Atlanta a few months back too: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/01/protester-palestine-self-immolate-atlanta-israel-consulate

i managed not to hear about that one until this one.

90% of the people in this thread are contrarian

who just want to smugly laugh to themselves about how this does nothing or he deserves it for being a troop. Like idk how anyone can see this and not just feel a sense of sadness that not only did someone die in such an excruciating way but for absolutely nothing and that nothing will change or even remember him, especially since seemingly half the people who'll even remember this in a week's time are saying he's destined for hell because he didn't hijack a Boeing or something and do 9/12.

nah we should absolutely moneyball protest actions. it's the same analysis that tells us adventurism is usually counter-productive to our side, and we don't need people going out in one of the worst ways to do it because they wrongly think it'll make a difference if it will, in fact, not make a difference.
- Counterpoint if you never actualy do anything then nothing ever actualy happens.
  People who argue against adventurism out of pragmatism are completely disconnected to the reality we're losing, in fact in most ways we already lost and if you can't do anything meaningful at least do something that will be remembered for future generations.
  Just surviving is rational but not inherently more productive, those that usualy argue against adventurism are also not doing any other form of praxis either. I think it is fine to argue back and forth on whether its productive or not, but at the same time it is so hard not to be cynical and note the western left doesn't do anything period, so it is just hypocritical in the end from the perspective of a western left that is completely inert and disorganized.

It's obviously sad and very disturbing, and should be the kind of thing that wakes people up. Unfortunately, the US media is very careful on downplaying/misreporting self-immolations, even though in theory it's the type of macabre story that they'd capitalize on.

Soon from the US media: "We need to ban all images from Gaza so young people don't hurt themselves!"
- “We must accelerate the development of the empathy-disabling brain chip”
I think it’s treated similar to suicides where giving them certain kinds of publicity causes a predictable uptick in suicide rates. How it took them so long to start applying the same standards to mass shooters, I’ll never know.
- Remember when they had kill ranking boards for mass killers on CNN? Like it was a contest?

This won't make any headlines. A monk in Tibet? Plastered everywhere. People throwing paint or soup or whatever on art? Everywhere, drives the chuds rage. But they'll hardly mention this.

Only good AmeriKKKan soldier.

But seriously this is based AF. No matter his faith, may Allah reward his compassion and bravery in the afterlife

Any journalist that does not publish this or completly ignore his reason is lowest propaganda creator alive. I agree that media would have gone mad with this if this was 50 years ago in Vietnam. Media became much more state controlled since. Remembering you is the least I could do noble soldier

That's not it. It's that people set themselves on fire in protest in DC all the time. It's simply not noteworthy. Now, granted, the news loves to take common occurrences and make a big story out of a random one, but I guess setting yourself on fire just isn't cool anymore. There used to be a wiki article that kept a list, but I can't find it now. If I remember correctly it was about once a week or two.
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_self-immolations
  I recommend not reading that. Jesus Christ.

He may have been a troop, and a single death is nothing compared to what Israel is doing to the Palestinians, and maybe his action didn't achieve anything, but we are still talking about a human life of someone who got where they are partially due to the material reality they grew up in, and of someone who in the end saw the wrongness in it all. I thus am a bit alarmed that some of the comments' first reaction on here is to insult him.

Yeah that's super fucked up and not to be tolerated.
Well my mom and dad made a lot of money and I've never needed to consider doing something like joining the military or have the audacity to be an ignorant product of my hyper-propagandized crumbling society.
- That's why I said that he got where he is partially due to the material reality he grew up in. To me every death is sad even if who died did evil, but that's because I attribute a person's decisions a whole lot more than just "partially" to the material reality. But I wanted to make clear that even if one doesn't share that belief it's still fucked up to react that way.

Doing something like that's no small commitment, that's for sure.

Is it just me or has self immolation gotten very frequent in the US? There was that scientist in D.C. protesting climate change, then another person in Atlanta protesting Israel.

I'm old and in my entire life it seems to me people in US setting themselves on fire as protest only became a thing recently. I can't remember any from decades ago. I'm sure there were some but I just can't remember a single one.
--
Edit
This Wikipedia list starts from 2018.
Self-immolation
United States
On 14 April 2018, David Buckel self immolated in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Shortly before lighting himself on fire he sent an email to several news outlets which included the statement "Most humans on the planet now breathe air made unhealthy by fossil fuels, and many die early deaths as a result—my early death by fossil fuel reflects what we are doing to ourselves."
Wynn Bruce, a climate activist from Boulder, Colorado self-immolated on the steps of the Supreme Court of the United States on Earth Day, 22 April 2022. On 28 March 2022, he made a Facebook post stating “This is not humor. It is all about breathing” followed by “Clean air matters.”
On 1 December 2023, a protester self-immolated in front of the Israeli consulate in Atlanta and was hospitalized in "critical condition" for severe burns. A security guard trying to stop the act was also burned on the wrist and leg. The protester had draped herself in a Palestinian flag, and police indicated her actions were in response to the 2023 Israel–Hamas war.
On February 25, 2024, a man who identified himself as an active-duty U.S. Air Force officer self-immolated outside of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., protesting Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip during the Israel–Hamas war. The man filmed the protest and livestreamed it on Twitch, and recorded as he walked up to the Israeli Embassy, saying "I will no longer be complicit in genocide, ... I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest." When the man arrived at the embassy gates, he set his phone down to film himself dousing his body in a clear liquid from a metal bottle. He then lit himself on fire while shouting "Free Palestine".
- Nah a bunch of Americans did it during Vietnam war. Unlike Thich Quang Duc, none of them worked with other people to get anything out of their sacrifice and so they are forgotten. When he self-immolated there was a whole protest planned around it and they invited press. The Americans are all doing it as horrible alienated acts of desperation.
  This guy might get some news time because he uploaded a video and wore his uniform, but I don't think it'll be worth it. Another war death.
  edit: Watched the video. Maybe it will galvanize Americans who already disapprove of the genocide. RIP Aaron.
- I counted 29 Americans on the list of notable self immolations. A significant portion of them are against the Vietnam war.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_self-immolations
"The Deluge" predicts a near future where climate activists start setting themselves on fire outside of 5 star restaurants by the dozens at a time.

I salute this man. The Empire will of course play down his courageous act and bury it as soon as possible, but we will remember. He threw his life away to protest for Palestine.

They've already circled the wagons, and itssssssssssss.................
Mental illness!!!!
who could have guessed??
- I'm predicting some of the more reactionary outlets are about to jump on the anarchist angle.

Damn shame he chose that path

If we must live in a society with unsupervised access to incredible firepower and a tendency of stochastic terrorism, why couldn't we get a little left-wing adventurism on a board room or something that actually matters instead of just hateful 19 year old white incels shooting up black churches?
(I know why please don't lecture me on the differences between reactionary ideology and leftism or even liberalism, it just doesn't feel fair)
- Nah for real like if you’re really set on suicide try to take some monsters down with you at least
- It does feel like its time for the Anarchists to step up to the plate like they did in the 1800s (this is not an endorsement of adventurism)

That poor bastard. I don't know if he was a comrade or simply someone who broke when confronted by US actions. But this is the least useful way to Martyr yourself, and Martyrdom is the least useful way of resistance.

Regardless, since he is a martyr, may he rest with those of Haymarket.

self immolation is a shit way to go and while efficacy of action is probably not the priority of someone committing suicide, i'm not aware of individual actions like this ever amounting to much.

It would have been significantly more effective for him to defect and go help Palestinians resist the IOF. Especially since he already had military knowledge.
- I seriously doubt this is an actual option he could have taken.
- or to sabotage and destroy bombs and jets
Self-immolation literally kicked off the Arab Spring in Tunisia.
- this ain't tunisia
- no

Goddamn.

A person just killed themselves to try to stop a genocide and you call them a loser because you're super cool
What would that have done? This guy is in the US Airforce, not the IDF. This isnt like Veitnam or Korea, or any of the other genocidal actions take by the US Military, because the US military isnt the one perpetuating this genocide, Israel is. Killing some low level Air Force officer in DC isnt going to do anything to help Palestinians.
Think about it: if he had killed another member of the Air Force "for Palestine" that would be incredible propaganda for Israel. It would have done nothing but create further fuel for American support for Israel.
- As a purely hypothetical and academic discussion...
  Soldiers going Postal and killing commanders in the US armed forces is a very different level of blowback to supporting Genocide than dealing with protesters in the streets. A certain level of protest and ill-will from the population is factored in to these decisions: losing career commanders is not. If you're going to go out and set an example for how to refuse to take part in an organization that aids a genocide, you may as well do as much damage as you possibly can. There's no moral duty to go easy on genociders, even if they're one degree of separation removed.
  As for your argument about whether or not it would be twisted by the media - of course it would. But with a proper letter of intent drafted and mailed to multiple media outlets and unaffiliated journalists, at least some exposure to the true messaging could be achieved. This isn't an atmosphere of unilateral control over the media like was possible in the 80's and 90's, and people are more open to dissenting voices now than ever. There's already high profile examples of officials resigning that could be pointed to as well.
  https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-education-official-resigns-over-bidens-israel-gaza-policy-2024-01-04/#:~:text=Josh%20Paul%2C%20a%20former%20State,%22blind%20support%22%20for%20Israel
  It's not some fringe crank position to be anti-israel at this point. The resignation was almost 4 months ago. That there hasn't been any escalation of resistance is more surprising than anything. I genuinely think if you're in the armed forces and have decided you're willing to die for this moral issue, we're at a point where it's both morally and strategically viable to harm the structure as much as possible on the way out.

I'm not gonna shit on this guy because I think his heart was very obviously in the right place, but I have to agree with others here in that this is a terrible waste of a life, particularly a life belonging to the one US troop willing to die fighting the Palestinian genocide.

Unfortunately, I doubt he was capable of doing much better because of how massively alienated he must've been. He almost certainly lacked anything resembling a coherent set of politics, and he almost certainly lacked like minded comrades to set him on the right path. Considering he was active duty, I have no doubt he could have found a way to frag some officers, but he probably thought violence would be counter productive. There's a reason why Americans grow up learning about a wildly sanitized version of MLK Jr. and absolutely nothing about the Black Panthers.

So in the end, he spent his last moments screaming in agony for nothing, not understanding that the media was going to effortlessly sweep this under the rug just like it did the last few self immolations. This is so fucking sad, and it's why we need to organize to capture and productively redirect people like this as they radicalize. Rest in peace.

Yeah, he didn't fail, he did the only thing he could think of. We failed him, we should have given him a path to walk and comrades to share it.
- We failed him, we should have given him a path to walk and comrades to share it.
  This man wanted to be a comrade but didn't know it. Didn't know how. The state of the american left is so weak, when a troop does something like this, many of us jeer at him for not offing a few pigs or burning an office. Yes, this will likely be buried due to the way american media works, but if he had gone
  , this would be just another box ticked in the "criminalize anything left of dems" bingo card.
I know he wanted this to be remembered by the people whose minds need to change, but I will still hold his memory in my heart. It hurts so much to see a person suffer for nothing, and puts into perspective the numbness I have to subject myself to to even discuss the horror that is Palestine. I do wish he had fragged out instead of putting himself through a painful death that he likely didn't deserve.
They gavw more time to a vacant Burger King building on fire lmao
Fucking hell man

What an incredibly horrible cry of frustration and rage at being part of something monstrous that you know you can't stop.

He was young and had military training. This was far from his only option.
- Game it out. I know what you imply but what would be the material result?

I don’t agree with his choice but

The gesture is not lost, but I'm afraid the most likely outcome will be for the Empire to redouble its efforts to eliminate any lingering sense of compassion and humanity left in the troops that are coerced to serve for an education and some semblance of healthcare.

Can't have more acts of empathy with the wretched of the earth popping up. A renewed or remaining conscience is bad for America. Can't have more troops feeling remorse for the innocent dead, it'll directly affect Raytheon's stock prices.

It is a shame his sacrifice will be written off by the people enabling the genocide and outright ignored by the ones committing it. And it's frightening that with his intimate knowledge of America, Israel and the military industrial complex, the most effective method of protesting genocide he could think of was with his remaining life.

Rest in peace, Aaron Bushnell

Unironically should have walked into his COs office and
- I'm sure it was considered, immolation isn't exactly a light choice made on a whim. An air force CO would get replaced within a couple days, the media circus will completely ignore the fact.
  The right will go into conspiracy theories, liberals will say it's a mental health issue, the news will cover how tragic it is, the CO had a family, or there was a disagreement, etc.
  How much of the Chris Dorner discourse was around the actual reason he went on a rampage?
  Even if there were a manifesto left behind, it would be spun as him being radicalised by Hamas or being delusional or any number of reasons the liberal media has parried any criticism of the IDF.
  But immolation? To be yelling Free Palestine repeatedly in front of cameras as flames engulfed your body? That's undeniable. That has to be addressed.

Fucking idiots, if you're willing to go out self immolating, might aswell go for sabotage, given your access. It's one thing when you're a Buddhist monk dedicated to pacifism, but if you're a soldier you don't have that excuse

What a weird response to someone literally killing themselves in an incredibly excruciating and visible manner in an effort to do something. You dont know what this man had access to or what he reasonably could have done. The American military, as evil and genocidal as it is, is not the body carrying out the genocide of Palestinians, Israel is. America is complicit and we are funding them, but theres no way to know if this man had any access to relevant personnel or any higher officials in the US gov. And theres no saying as to whether soemthing like a scuttled jet in some Air Force hanger would make an ounce of difference in Palestine (and this is assuming this guy could have carried out sabotage on that level alone, which is a long shot).
As awful as it may be, the suicide of a service member may be more effective than any other thing he could have done. Propoganda can be, if properly utilized, a far more useful and effective tool than adventurism and individual acts of violence.
- Honestly all the fucking "this guy is a loser" shit is 100x more actually reactionary than half the shit I see in the mod log labeled "reactionary." Just so utterly lacking in empathy.
  The guy literally fucking killed himself for his beliefs, and his beliefs were "FREE PALESTINE." That is fucking hardcore. I can only hope that I possess even a fraction of the bravery this dude had going to certain death. I'm afraid of dying in general, every way is an awful way. Burning to death is fucking agonizing, one of the worst possible ways you can die, and he chose it because he so strongly supports the Palestinian cause.
  "He should have..." fuck you. You should be fucking doing something, armchair revolutionary
- What a weird response to someone literally killing themselves in an incredibly excruciating and visible manner in an effort to do something
  let's all self immolate ourselves for Palestine, see how that will go. Better yet, let's start the revolution by all collectively killing ourselves, that will surely make the bourgeois feel sorry about us and just go down. You know the problem with what he did? he wasted his life for NOTHING, this self immolation just like the past few self immolations done for Palestine where the easiest things that the western propaganda swept under the rug, So what if he's a soldier? they'd just wipe it off as a "he was mentally insane, this is all due to male loneliness" nonsense
  but theres no way to know if this man had any access to relevant personnel or any higher officials in the US gov. And theres no saying as to whether soemthing like a scuttled jet in some Air Force hanger would make an ounce of difference in Palestine (and this is assuming this guy could have carried out sabotage on that level alone, which is a long shot).
  All would've been better options than self immolating.
  As awful as it may be, the suicide of a service member may be more effective than any other thing he could have done. Propoganda can be, if properly utilized, a far more useful and effective tool than adventurism and individual acts of violence.
  What is the difference between this act and adventurism? atleast sometimes with adventurism a fascist dies.
Family?
I'd at least run around the base like Denethor and try to set some furniture on fire too

Unironic

Not criticizing, but anyone of a similar feeling & position might consider

How alone he must have felt, especially as active duty. Christ..

Okay, so there are now only two types of good troops.

As much as I believe that all US troops are inherently evil, recognizing the evil one is helping to perpetrate and being willing to sacrifice ones life in an attempt to right wrongs is at least some sort of redemption.

Brave

Dreamed about him last night. Same age as me. What a terrible world.

he died

Aaron Bushnell / LillyAnarKitty

Fascist Zionists DGAF. But the guilt that guy has to think this is the way...while you're in if you refuse to "just following orders" they will imprison or dishonorably discharge which is worse than a felony. Life ending. Maybe he left a data dump somewhere. Points to we are way further involved in this than just supplying boom booms.

oh my god its the good troop we found him!

I wish I was this brave goddamn

think of how many fucking troops this guy could've disposed of instead. guy could've made a real material difference in the world, but he decided to put his trust in the media.

This is a guy who was mentally unwell enough to intentionally die by setting himself on fire. It might be worth considering that he wasn't of sound enough mind to meticulously plan mass murder too.
- sure, maybe he didn't have it in him to do murders. but also you dont really need to meticulously plan it if you're a troop. you're carrying around guns all the time and you know where the officers hang out. doesn't take a genius to figure it out
Your comment put it more politely than others here. It’s a shame too because he realized the truth, but didn’t seem like he consulted anyone else who could’ve warned him about the media hiding it. Which I guess makes sense because most people would likely call the cops on him to stop him. But I don’t know.

I just wish I could think of something better than self immolation.

no more half measures walter

I keep waiting for traditional mainstream media to fail. Any day now, people have been saying for the last decade

Should've set the embassy on fire too tbh.

It wouldn't help with the framing though. They'd just label it as "radical anti-semetic terrorist attack." It's alot harder for the propaganda machine to manipulate his act when it's self-immolation.