As previously reported, Aaron Bushnell was an Air Force member who self-immolated outside the Israeli embassy last Sunday.
Bushnell recorded the act of self-immolation and, in the video, he stated: “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.”
He then lighted himself on fire and yelled, “Free Palestine.”
Days after Bushnell’s death, The Intercept examined his social media profiles and successfully connected the Reddit account acebush1 to Bushnell.
After carefully analyzing Bushnell’s Reddit account, The Intercept concluded that Bushnell “grew disillusioned with the U.S. military and his own role as a service member.”
Posts on his account disclosed that Bushnell was ideologically an anarchist who advocated for the disarmament of both the U.S. military and police forces.
In one comment on Reddit, a post from Bushnell read, “Common sense gun control should mean “disarming the police and military first.”
In a different subreddit, Bushnell expressed his belief that cults stem from “whiteness,” and in another subreddit, he shared a picture featuring a graphic stating, “No God, No Boss, No Husband, No State.”
In a disturbing post on the subreddit Anarchy4Everyone, Bushnell wrote, “Jesus can fu** off with his demagoguery.”
As reported by The Intercept:
In the months leading up to Bushnell’s act of self-immolation, several of acebush1’s posts showed how sharply their view of the military had shifted. On the r/Airforce subreddit, a user asked veterans whether, in hindsight, they would still choose to join the military. Acebush1 answered, “Absolutely not.”
“I have been complicit in the violent domination of the world,” they said, “and I will never get the blood off my hands.”
The Intercept analysis linked the acebush1 Reddit account to Bushnell by analyzing his social media activity. In a post on Facebook the same day as his self-immolation, Bushnell had posted a link to the video streaming platform Twitch with the username LillyAnarKitty. Using a Twitch username history tool that identifies a user’s prior account names, The Intercept found that the same Twitch User ID number used by LillyAnarKitty previously employed the handle acebush1.
A Reddit user with the same username โ acebush1 โ posted over a thousand times since 2014. The Reddit posts mention details that align closely with Bushnell’s life, including being in the Air Force, having a friend who was a conscientious objector, and studying computer science.
Another alarming post from Bushnell was his “OhNoAnyway” response to the deaths of three U.S. Army reserves in a drone attack in Jordan.
Comments from the acebush1 account have since been removed from Reddit but the profile still remains.
TAKE A LOOK AT SOME OF HIS COMMENTS:
Share your thoughts by scrolling down to leave a comment.
