US Soldier Who Burned Himself to Death Over Gaza Wins Sam Adams Associates Award for Integrity in Intelligence
In presenting its 2024 award, the Sam Adams Associates says it salutes Aaron Bushnell’s courage in performing a vital public service at the greatest cost — martyrdom — for truth-telling.
Vigil on Feb. 27, 2024, outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington for Aaron Bushnell, a U.S. airman who self-immolated to protest the Israeli genocide in Gaza. (Diane Krauthamer, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
A notice from the Sam Adams Associates:
The Sam Adams Associates are pleased to announce United States Air Force Senior Airman Aaron Bushnell as the recipient of the 2024 Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence.
Bushnell was a cyber defense operations specialist with the 531st Intelligence Squadron at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. He was assigned to the 70th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing at Fort Meade in Maryland.
Senior Airman (SRA) Bushnell martyred himself when he walked up to the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 25, 2024, while streaming himself as he approached, and then self-immolated in protest of what Israel is doing to Palestinians, the most extreme form of protest. He was 25 years old and had been on active duty since May 2020, according to the service.
He had stated as he approached the embassy:
“My name is Aaron Bushnell, and I am an active duty member of the United States Air Force. 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.”
In an earlier on-line post, later identified as from SRA Bushnell, he’d written: “I have been complicit in the violent domination of the world and I will never get the blood off my hands.”
In advance of his burning, Bushnell posted this message on his Facebook page:
“Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide? The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”
As he was consumed by flames, SRA Bushnell’s last words were, “Free Palestine,” said repeatedly.
This was not an act of suicide, as some would have us believe, though SRA Bushnell acted out of despair of any other means of protest having an effect in stopping Israeli genocide and U.S. complicity in that. He obviously suffered the moral injury that so many U.S. service members suffer from when they come to realize their role in, as SRA Bushnell put it: “I have been complicit in the violent domination of the world and I will never get the blood off my hands.”
Feb. 26, 2024: A vigil in Washington for Aaron Bushnell, the active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force who self-immolated outside the Israel embassy to avoid being complicit in genocide. (Elvert Barnes, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0)
But in SRA Bushnell’s case, his actions made him a “Whistleblower,” in the finest tradition of many of the other Sam Adams Awardees, in that he was acting in opposition to what the Israeli Defense Forces and the Israeli government describe as “Cognitive Warfare.”
Or the “Battle for Consciousness,” of the world’s population, which accompanies Israel’s illegal treatment of the Palestinians being held under illegal military occupation, in denial of that illegality. Here is how it is described in an Israeli book on that “Battle for Consciousness,” or “Public Diplomacy”:
“The IDF speaks about consciousness: ‘The strategy of limited conflict is to win a decision of ‘consciousness in the society with the help of military means. The battle is for the society’s consciousness and for national resilience. Decision is achieved through maneuvering to raise doubts and generate a sense of persistent uncertainty.'”
Senior Airman Bushnell seriously upset the preferred narrative in Israel’s so-called “Public Diplomacy,” or more correctly, “Cognitive Warfare” as the “Battle for Consciousness.”
In that, in his opposition to genocide, SRA Bushnell was acting in the finest tradition of past U.S. heroes who took it upon themselves to undertake missions knowing the only possible outcome was certain death, in sacrificing their life for a noble purpose.
That’s not “suicide.” It’s martyrdom, in the spirit of the most exalted people in history.
Perhaps inspired by Sr. Airman Bushnell, numerous other government employees have sacrificed their careers in protest of Israel’s genocide and U.S. complicity in that. We honor all of them too, with this Award, though presented in Aaron Bushnell’s name.
The Sam Adams Associates wish to salute the courage of Aaron Bushnell in performing a vital public service at the greatest cost — martyrdom — for truth-telling.
We urge an end to U.S. complicity in the ongoing Israeli genocide taking place before the world’s eyes, and legal accountability for all engaged in that genocide, Israeli and American. To that end, the public’s right to know about their government’s wrongful actions — including the adverse consequences of policies carried out in their name — must be respected and preserved.
SRA Bushnell is the 21st awardee of the Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence. His distinguished colleagues include Daniel Ellsberg, Julian Assange and Craig Murray, who have all paid heavy prices for truth-telling.
But Senior Airman Aaron Bushnell voluntarily paid the highest price, a price we wish no one to pay. But in endless U.S. wars “in the violent domination of the world,” we must expect our service members to feel the righteous despair that Aaron Bushnell wrote of: “I will never get the blood off my hands.”
Other fellow Sam Adams Award alumnae include NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake; F.B.I. 9-11 whistleblower Coleen Rowley; and GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun, whose story was recounted in the film Official Secrets.
Sam Adams was a C.I.A. whistleblower who exposed the U.S. official lie about the strength of Viet Cong forces.
The full roster of Sam Adams awardees is available at samadamsaward.ch.