cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/12535868
Aaron Bushnell claimed he had secret knowledge of US troops fighting in Hamas tunnels under Gaza — just hours before setting himself on fire
"His actual job involves the processing of intelligence data. Some of what he was processing had to do with the Israeli Gaza conflict.
“One of the things he told me is that coming across his desk … was the US military was involved in the genocides going on in Palestine,’’ the friend said,
At first I rhought he must have had a mental break to do this, but in the video he sounds completely calm and rational. Which lends credence to his claim, to his friend, that he did know USA was invovled in terrible stuff that he could not be a part of.
If he had such knowledge and evidence of it, surely he could have done much more than suicide.
You would think so. One online review had an image of his deployment order to Gaza he received, so maybe he figured his life would be over anyway. Maybe in his role he legally could not divulge it on pain of treason, prison, etc so felt backed in a corner. Maybe a superior already threatened him. Maybe he saw how people like Snowden are treated once they divulge a US secret. Hard to say from one video and his best buddy’s account of interaction. The government will play the “He was unwell card” obviously. The sad part is some video posts have already editted out the portion where he says sonething like “This [genocide] is what your government considers Normal” so that the narrative is not about the US government but about his belief and palestine support only.