The Gateway Pundit previously reported that Air Force member Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire outside of the Israeli embassy on Sunday.
Bushnell recorded the act of self-immolation and, in the video, 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 proceeded to light himself on fire and shout, “Free Palestine.”
Days after Bushnell took his life, The Intercept analyzed Bushnell’s social media profiles and was able to link the Reddit account acebush1 to Bushnell.
After analyzing Bushnell’s Reddit account, The Intercept concluded Bushnell “grew disillusioned with the U.S. military and his own role as a service member.”
Posts on his account revealed Bushnell was ideologically an anarchist who called for both the U.S. military and police to be disarmed.
In one comment on Reddit, a post from Bushnell read, “Common sense gun control should mean “disarming the police and military first.”
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In a separate subreddit, Bushnell wrote that cults are a result of “whiteness,” and in another subreddit, he posted a photo with a graphic that read, “No God, No Boss, No Husband, No State.”
His disdain towards “colonizers” and “Democracy” was also present in his Reddit posts:
In a jarring post on the subreddit Anarchy4Everyone, Bushnell wrote, “Jesus can f*** off with his demagoguery.”
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A month later, the 25-year-old Air Force service member commented on the AntifascistofReddit page and gave his take on the war in Gaza.
It appears Bushnell was ready to leave the Air Force because a social media post he wrote on r/Anarchism read, “on the way out.”
In a concerning post in the r/Air Force, the 25-year-old airman shared he wasn’t fond of being told what to do by leadership and shared how he was tired of saluting Colonels.
Per 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 — acebush1 — 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 concerning post from Bushnell was his “OhNoAnyway” reaction to three U.S. Army reserves who were killed in a drone attack in Jordan.
It seems that Bushnell did not…cover himself in glory on Reddit.
His account seems mostly scrubbed of his posts now, but he definitely posted this mocking US Army reservists who were killed in a drone attack in Jordan. pic.twitter.com/SRfwebXZJ1
— Dr. Waitman W. Beorn (@waitmanwbeorn.com ) (@waitmanb) February 27, 2024
Comments from the acebush1 account have since been removed from Reddit but the profile still remains.
