My partner’s niece went into the army after high school, went to Iraq three times, each time she was so badly injured she had to be sent home to be patched up, and then returned for the next tour- interesting word that the army uses. After the third time she got a discharge because she was too badly injured to function in army mode. She went to college, graduating with a masters in public policy from Cal State Hayward, now called East Bay. That got her a job with Tesla, managing and advocating their supply chain. She lives comfortably today in an upscale gated neighborhood of San Jose and it talking about going back for a PHD.
She told me that despite the immense suffering she would still go through the army all over again. Her options were limited out of high school in San Jose, dad and mom were initially illegal immigrants from Mexico, who worked minimum wage jobs. Then her dad got a heart attack and lost their house and savings. Her option was to try and make a go of it by getting a student loan and trying to make ends meet in an expensive college town. Or try the promise of the army.
She never questioned why she was in Iraq. Fighting to stop Al Qaeda from destroying the American way of life seemed like a worthwhile mission. Then being assigned to Iraq sort of made sense, after all there was the immense destruction she saw after 911 in New York. Many of her peers in east San Jose also signed up, and some did not come back. Today, after college, she realizes that what she perceived then was manipulated WMDs and all. Given a choice though she says, she would not have gone to Iraq or protested it, but she didn’t have a choice.
I think Bushnell was in the same boat as our niece. He was smart and talented which is apparent from what he said, how he chose to document his self immolation, and how he ensured that the surveillance capitalist state could not erase his protest. And yet for him, out of high school, the air force was the best option despite this technician training. Options are limited for the youth today. Like voting, being able to find a house, feeling safe from police violence, putting food on the table, affording college, many young people are in a bind, and feel left out. On the economic front alone they look at the military as a way out.
What the young see, is what we adults also see, such as this miserable choice we have in November between an active genocidist and a concentration camp for immigrants demagogue. They can’t even imagine ever owning a house, yet we have immense pools of money to destroy blocks and blocks of apartment buildings in Gaza and the West Bank and replace them with nice suburban single family homes or duplexes with lawns and SUVs for settlers, who we also arm. Police violence is increasing especially for young, colored, people trying to live or protest either Cop City, pipelines, or genocide, yet the police keep getting trillions from the feds, states, and city governments. And any decent food is unaffordable for most families, the government even went so far as to cancel the increased child credit that functioned as a guaranteed basic income to reduce child poverty and hunger.
Around the Middle East 30 million displaced and starving people ensure that we have safe shipping lanes for “our" oil and gas. It’s the whole reason to be of the US Armed forces, which recalls Tian’s sign that I have on my bike: Bicycling- a quiet statement against oil wars.
The air force, where Aaron worked, has an entire mission built and funded around bombing brown and black countries into the stone age. What we see in Gaza today was previewed in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Guatemala, Angola, and Iran from the destruction of hospitals and critical infrastructure, to killing people by disease, dehydration and starvation, to the carpet bombing of cities like Falluja, Raqqa and Aleppo. By the way, these are ancient walkable cities that predate both climate change and 15 minute neighborhoods. They will be replaced by auto friendly cities hostile to low CO2 pedestrians. When the IPCC6 WGIII report says that cities have gone from 60% of emission totals to over 70% they are talking about the remaking of these type of cities though even the IPCC could not have imagined it happening in this manner.
Aaron had to have been aware of what the US/Biden chose to do in Yemen to overcome their adherence to the Geneva Convention. He said as much in his statement about not wanting to be part of a genocide. Unfortunately he realized, genocide is in, figuratively speaking, our genes. There is no way to beg out of electing people like Pelosi, Biden, Trump, or buying the products, that we do, that help the war industry. Most of what we buy, phones, cars, purses, etc have or are powered by materials from Myanmar, Rawanda, Congo, East Timor, Guatamala etc. that have genocide stamped all over, as fundamental aspects of their manufacture. Ethical work cannot exist under capitalism, even more so for members of the armed forces. The youth know this and Aaron was speaking for them, about not being part of the cog that grinds down brown and black people for their oil or coltan or gold.
I was entering middle school when Thich Quang Duc self immolated in Vietnam to protest his powerlessness against American atrocities. His calm yogi position while going up in flames is seared into my memory. Then before leaving middle school Muhammed Ali became a hero by telling off the US Government, "Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?” He paid for it, by loosing his career, at his peak. It was in leveraging their positions and message that we, I, became aware of the atrocities committed by my government in my name. If they hadn’t risked their privilege would I still have been informed in middle school? Probably not.
But where are we 60 years later? In a lot worse shape that 60 years ago. Abortion is once more illegal in many states and being criminalized to a larger extent. The corrupt supreme court threatens to roll back other protection like gay marriage. Biden has said he is not in favor of expanding the court to prevent the loser of the popular vote’s appointments from disenfranchising people. Trans people have become a political football for the right. And democrats are making pacts with the devil on the border to secure money for their corrupt wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Worse we are stuck with Biden and Trump where Gaza couldn’t give a shit who was dropping the bombs, can we just stop dropping bombs for the settlers? And the choice has come down to Gazan genocide or concentration camps on the border. We’ve spent $8T since 2000 on wars and taken 6 million lives. The implications are clear, if the state weapons industrial congressional complex doesn’t give a shit about genocide or immigrants why would they care about poverty, homelessness, a woman’s right to choose, climate change, fill in your favorite charity here.
We paid the price because more prominent people, like Ali, did not use their standing and privilege to challenge the system. If the 60s was a horrific decade of wars beginning with Vietnam, this one is no less so, with moral monsters in the words of James Baldwin, at the Ukrainian Gaza wheel warring across the planet. Then as now Democrats saw no reason to stop unjust and genocidal attempts at colonial control and land acquisition. But at least then there was a Soviet power counterbalancing the nuts in the White House. Today they roll forward toward nuclear annihilation without abandon. We are immensely grateful to the Aarons of this world who raise the profile of the evil we see all around us. But more so in Gaza where people feel powerless over the slaughter death decapitations and starvation of women and children while Biden smirks over his ice cream.
Aaron’s words are memorable. ”My name is Aaron Bushnell, 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 repeatedly called out free Palestine as he collapsed.
We haven’t come far from the 60s but we know where we need to go. We need a strong United Nations so that the rule of law can prevail. South Africa has started us on the process. We need to elect almost 90% of Congress that aren’t anti-Palestinian bigots; a huge effort that will require young people like Aaron to be motivated to run for office. What ever happens in Gaza we need to be vigilant against the occupation which will go on building up the opportunity for the settler colonial state's next slaughter that the global weapons congressional complex will be funding with our quiet complicity. We need to scrap the offensive components of our defense industry that denies people the ability to write their own history, and spend the money at home on our youth. So that people like Aaron, who get it, can see a future, seven generation away, worth living and struggling over.
‘Ethical work cannot exist under capitalism, even more so for members of the armed forces.’
Yeah, well said point, especially in the context of our current form of global capitalism and our governments that are purely driven by greed and are mainly beholden to the interests of the corporations.
You spoke my heart in this. I live in a country where I see how the US has been empowering fascist forces that run genocides by aiding them and normalising their violence in the DC. I have experienced silent colonial settlement in this part of the world since the Cold War ended and how the blood of the oppressed and the marginalised help a parasite community to inflate...