Aaron Bushnell identified himself in the livestream video as he walked toward the Israeli embassy as “an active duty member of the U.S. Air Force” adding that “I will no longer be complicit in genocide.” He then lit himself ablaze and yelled “FREE PALESTINE!” over and over. -Sam Husseini (where you can watch the uncensored video)
On December 17, 2010, Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, catalyzing what would become known as the Arab Spring. Bouazizi, oppressed by local authorities, sensed himself in a hopeless position—a feeling shared by many of his compatriots, who pushed back against hopelessness by way of mass uprisings. Across the Arab world the cry was taken up: الشعب يريد إسقاط النظام, “the people want to bring down the regime.” By time it was over, governments in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen had fallen.
Last Sunday, February 25, US Air Force serviceman Aaron Bushnell burned himself to death in front of the Israeli embassy, saying “I will no longer be complicit in genocide.” Like Mohamed Bouazizi, Aaron Bushnell expressed “extreme” feelings shared by millions. And like Bouazizi, Bushnell carried out his last act in the shadow of the government building that symbolized tyranny. For Bouazizi, it was the governor’s office in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia. For Bushnell, it was the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC.
In neither case was the authorities’ control of social media sufficient to dampen the fires of outrage. In 2010 Arab potentates were scrambling to get a handle on the hard-to-censor nature of the internet, while American “democracy” proponents following Gene Sharp were way ahead of them in weaponizing the newly omnipresent cell phone.
Today, the pro-Palestine side of social media is outrunning the American Zionist oligarchs who dominate the legacy internet, as platforms founded by Chinese (TikTok) and Russians (Telegram) gain ground on the Zuckerbergs of the world. Suddenly, the majority of American young adults openly side with Hamas. Global outrage at Israel’s genocide of Gaza, like Arab outrage at circa-2010 dictatorships, isn’t easy to censor out of existence.
Bouazizi and Bushnell were both known as good guys who went out of their way to feed hungry people—Bouazizi by giving them his produce, Bushnell by volunteering with aid groups. Both suffered under fake leftist regimes—Ben Ali’s rotten remnants of Bourgiba’s Tunisian revolutionaries, and Biden’s equally rotten corpse of what was once the party of FDR and Kennedy. Both quickly became icons of the fight against injustice.
Finally, and most importantly, Bouazizi and Bushnell both lived in lands dismembered and degraded by Zionists. Bouzizi’s MENA region has been trying to excise the carcinogenic implant of the Zionist entity since it metastasized in 1948, but Zionist hands on the levers of global power won’t allow it. The gargantuan gap between the people of the region, who are in overwhelming majority anti-Zionist, and the rulers, whose pragmatism forces them to accommodate the Zionist-led West, makes normal governance in the region impossible.
Bushnell’s America, too, has seen normal governance destroyed by Zionists. The Kennedy assassinations (protecting Israel’s nuclear program) and 9/11 (hijacking America’s military to destroy Israel’s enemies) were the one-two punch that KO’d American democracy.
Unlike Mohamed Bouazizi, Aaron Bushnell picked exactly the right place to burn himself alive: The Israeli embassy in Washington, DC, the real center of power in post-JFK post-9/11 America. While Bouzizi’s grievance was personal, his thoughts and feelings inchoate, Bushnell knew what he was up against, and planned his last words perfectly: “I will no longer be complicit in genocide. Free Palestine!”
Will Bushnell spark an “American spring”? It would be nice if the same haters-of-injustice who overran US cities during the 2020 George Floyd protests would notice a vastly greater injustice—the Zionist hijacking of America and ensuing US complicity in the genocide of Palestine—and up their game. But instead of randomly looting and burning down small businesses and retail outlets, why not protest the genocidaires themselves? There are plenty of institutions and individuals directly complicit in the Gaza genocide, starting with Israeli embassies and consulates, and including locations affiliated with AIPAC, the ADL, and the other “major Zionist organizations.” They all richly deserve to be the focus of “mostly peaceful protests.”
Might Aaron Bushnell’s sacrifice spark a movement of patriotic, high-IQ service members willing to lay down their lives to end Zionist dominance of the United States? That, according to Alan Sabrosky, former Head of Strategic Studies at the US Army War College, is the only conceivable way that the Zionist golem’s death-grip on America could end. Sabrosky notes that the anti-Zionist anti-Deep-State “Constitutional counter-coup” would probably have to be led by colonels (Douglas MacGregor anyone?) not generals, since the generals are blackmailed, bought-and-paid-for, or otherwise controlled.
So here’s the left-right combination that could knock out the Zionists: First, angry young leftists start doing a George-Floyd-protests-redux against Zionist targets. But this time the Zionist-dominated mainstream media is split, with the younger journalists supporting the protests, while the older ones and management react with horror. As the chaos spreads, and the Democratic party continues to polarize, a Trump victory in November seems all but assured. Panicking neocons belatedly take Robert Kagan’s advice and try assassinating Trump.
Successful or not, the assassinate-Trump plot offers the anti-Zionist colonels the opportunity they need to declare a state of emergency and stage a Constitutional counter-coup. Uniting pro-Trump forces with the anti-Zionists of the center and right, the colonels reveal Israel’s responsibility for the Kennedy assassinations and 9/11, purge the media and financial sector, nationalize the big banks, bring the troops home from overseas bases to keep order during the return to Constitutional governance, and declare an end to the misbegotten American empire and the rebirth of the American Republic, which they intend to make great again.
The Arab spring turned out to be a mixed bag. It made Tunisia incrementally more democratic, brought heroic Houthis to power in Yemen, swapped one dictator for another in Egypt, imposed chaos on Libya, nearly destroyed Syria, but ultimately didn’t fundamentally change the region.
Would an American spring fare better? I hope and pray for the unlikely prospect that we get a chance to find out.
Could Aaron Bushnell’s Sacrifice Spark Regime Change?