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,

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  • Arbiter@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I mean, I feel like someone who was willing to set themselves on fire would also be willing to illegally leak classified documents if such existed.

    • GBU_28
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      8 months ago

      Agree. But I’m going to assume both are happening:

      1. He didn’t have the whole story
      2. Neither do we.

      I bet there are western special ops forces or contractors operating in Gaza, ostensibly hunting Iranian assets. I doubt they would risk the global pr explosion of using any non Israelis to conduct the policing and harassing tasks we are seeing. Deaths from which are genocidal in Nature)

      I’m not justifying any of it, and I’m not absolving the US of contributing to a genocide in Gaza. I just bet they are using the chaos to go hunting.

      So, if any of my assumptions are right, it could have been misreported to him. Or it wasn’t that and he deemed our known-public support of Israel’s ongoing genocidal actions as sufficient to motivate his protest.

      The US doesn’t care about Gaza, ( I mean this both ways: they wouldn’t take the time to conduct this genocide themselves, but also don’t care about the civilian welfare damn near enough). But they absolutely do care about what Iran is up to and would not hesitate to hunt Iranian agents or connections in an “open” area.

      • catloaf
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        7 months ago

        Yeah. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were special forces Americans in Israel working Sicario-style.

  • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    8 months ago

    This will be something that’s derided as a wild conspiracy for 30 years until the CIA posts an old doc on their official website that confirms it matter-of-factly

    On a more positive note, the time between speculation like this and hard proof emerging seems to be plummeting. Bushnell was not the only person inside the machine struggling with the consequences of his actions, so hopefully we get some leaks sooner rather than later.

    • JoeCoT@kbin.social
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      8 months ago

      See also the NYT article about the CIA being extremely involved in the war in Ukraine, and the many ways they assisted in escalating things before Russia invaded. Not a Russia fanboy, they shouldn’t have invaded and I hope they’re defeated soundly, but there was a lot of hand washing pretending that the US did not provoke this war, and it did.

      At least with Gaza, I actually kinda hope it’s true and US Special Forces are in those tunnels fighting Hamas members. Because that’s a far more effective method of stopping this fight than Israel carpet bombing civilians. I would like the US to beat Hamas before Israel does, in the same way Germans wanted the US to get to Berlin before the USSR.

  • ULS@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    Remember we’ve been living the ruling classes new normal for awhile. The future is going to get worse before it gets better.

    • catloaf
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      7 months ago

      Those are not military orders. Orders are on a form 1610 or similar. Based on what’s visible in that document, that looks like “if you get sent to Israel, here’s what you do”.

    • deranger@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      That’s not a deployment order, and I feel this has been taken out of context by people unfamiliar with the military. I can’t say with certainty what this is, but it could be guidance like “don’t wear your uniform in public if you’re in Israel”. It wouldn’t have no restrictions on releasing it if it were anything important.

      To say this is evidence of mandatory deployment orders is ridiculous.

      • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Yeah it’s unclassified. Plus it’s not even a secret that us troops are in Israel, biden sent like 2000 in November or December. It would be interesting news if they were fighting in Gaza, but I’m definitely going to need evidence before I even entertain that idea.

        This document as evidence is particularly weak because the air force doesn’t fight on the ground.

    • Gork
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      8 months ago

      Supersedes All Previous Israel Reporting Instructions

      Ok I’m a bit of a pedant and this type of language frustrates me. Give me an Order number, or document designation of any kind. This has no timeframe attached to it either. It should supersede a set of orders and not be vague like this.

    • Gamma@beehaw.org
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      8 months ago

      He did say he wasn’t going to be a part of the genocide, so that checks out

  • davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    The Intercept:

  • abbadon420
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    8 months ago

    Maybe the man was just not well. Do not discount the possibility of mental illness. The state of mental healthcare in the USA is abysmal. Military culture on top of that, does not help either.

    • guriinii@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Disgusting comment. The guy self-immolated, expecting to die, to seek attention he would never receive?

      Where’s your humanity?

    • livus@kbin.social
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      8 months ago

      He wanted attention

      Bit of a weird leap. He wanted to draw attention to a particular cause.

      People who just want attention find ways of drawing it to themselves so that they can actually enjoy it.