Antiwar.com Blog

Setting Yourself on Fire to Protest a War

Reprinted with permission from Greg Mitchell’s substack Between Rock and a Hard Place.

You may have read or heard about yesterday (if you were lucky, as the major media buried the story most of the day) that a senior U.S. airman named Aaron Bushnell, on active duty since 2020, doused himself with a clear liquid outside Israel’s embassy in Washington, D.C., and set himself afire, protesting U.S. support for what he called genocide in Gaza. “I will no longer be complicit in genocide,” he said into his phone. He died chanting “Free Palestine.” He also filmed the act on his phone, and excerpts or still images spread over social media. Memorial gatherings took place last night and are scheduled today in several cities here and abroad.

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Madmen Arsonists Strike Again

Aaron Bushnell just couldn’t take any more.

He couldn’t bear to see any more people eviscerated and incinerated by American bombs dropped by Israelis on innocent Palestinians.

So, in his Air Force uniform, he walked determinedly to the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. and set himself on fire.

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Why Would Anyone Kill Themselves To Stop a War?

Six years ago in 2018, after returning from a Veterans For Peace trip to Vietnam, I wrote an article called “Why Would Anyone Kill One’s Self In an Attempt to Stop A War?”

Now, six years later, in the past three months, two people in the United States have taken or risked taking their own lives in an attempt to change U.S. policies on Palestine and call for a cease-fire and stop U.S. funding to the State of Israel that would be used to kill in the Israeli genocide of Gaza. An yet unidentified woman, wrapped in a Palestinian flag, set herself on fire in front of the Israeli consulate in Atlanta, Georgia, on December 1, 2023. Three months later authorities have yet to release the name of the woman. Her condition was unknown as of mid-December.

This week, on Sunday, February 25, 2024, active duty U.S. Air Force member Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., while he was stating “Free Palestine and stop the genocide.” Bushnell died from his injuries.

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Airman Sets Himself on Fire To Protest Genocide in Gaza

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission.

A young Air Force airman set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in DC to protest genocide in Gaza. Aaron Bushnell, 25, died after being taken to a hospital.

Aaron Bushnell before he set himself on fire. Mainstream media sites chose not to feature any images of Bushnell, focusing instead on the Israeli Embassy or “the crime scene”

This was an extreme and deadly act of political protest directed against the Israeli government’s killing and wounding of 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza and its ongoing war of annihilation there, a war abetted by the U.S. government’s political and military power. Bushnell shouted “Free Palestine!” as he burned.

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The CIA’s Secret Ten-Year War on Russia… From Within Ukraine!

On today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report:

The New York Times came out with a bombshell article on Sunday detailing the past ten years of CIA active warfare from within Ukraine against Russia. From building 12 CIA bases within the country, to instructing on sabotage inside Russia to providing targeting intelligence BEFORE the 2022 Russian military operation in Ukraine. And… much of the operation was kept secret from then-President Trump!

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.