An active-duty member of the US Air Force named Aaron Bushnell sets himself on fire in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC on February 25, 2024. (Source: huanqiu.com)
The new round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict has claimed the lives of over 30,000 people and left more than 70,000 individuals wounded. On February 25, local time, Aaron Bushnell, an active-duty member of the US Air Force, set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in the US to protest against the extensive Palestinian civilian casualties caused by Israel's military operations in the Gaza Strip. This incident has sparked outcry and widespread concerns from the international community.
Chinese military commentator, Professor Jin Yi'nan remarked that Aaron Bushnell was protesting not only the massacre activities of the Israeli government and military in Palestine, but more importantly, the direct involvement of the US soldiers in the slaughter actions in the Gaza Strip.
A friend of Bushnell disclosed that he once learnt from Bushnell, who was a cyber defense operations specialist of the US Air Force, that "the US military has been directly involved in genocide against Palestinians". For this reason, as a US military serviceman, Bushnell felt extremely disappointed and refused to be complicit with such forces, so he finally burned himself to death.
The next day after the incident, Pentagon spokesman Patrick S. Ryder responded at a press conference that US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is monitoring the situation about Aaron Bushnell's self-immolation. The spokesman for the US Department of Defense also casually described it as a "tragic incident."
Professor Jin believed that the US military is at great disadvantage against this event. The Israeli military is still continuing its operations in the Gaza Strip, and even US Vice President recently accused the Israeli government of the humanitarian disasters in the Gaza Strip. Bushnell's radical protest against the US military's involvement in killing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip at such a sensitive moment has rendered the US military in the dock, prompting it to downplay this incident.
Besides, Bushnell does not come from a peripheral class in US society. If he were a person of color or had a previous record of mental illness, the mainstream class of the country would undoubtedly sensationalize this incident. However, Bushnell is a white man with an untarnished background. In the aftermath of his self-immolation, the US military tried to minimize the impact of his pursuit of the martyrdom spirit, for which he sacrificed his life. Some US media also tried in vain and failed to shape public opinion by asserting that Bushnell showed inclination towards religious extremism.
After the self-immolation incident, the mainstream media in the US intentionally understated the relevant crucial information in the headline, and many reports purposefully replaced Bushnell's explicit protest against the genocide targeting Palestinians with a fallacy of an objection to the Palestinian-Israeli war.
Professor Jin Yi'nan commented that the US media, government and military are all playing it down. Since the self-immolation incident took place, many regions in the US have seen memorial activities for Bushnell, which denotes a widespread recognition of his ideas and also exposes the acute contradictions in the US society. Our perception of the significance of this event may be limited for the time being, but its immense impacts will become more discernible over time.
Editor's note: Originally published on cnr.cn, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.
