MIKE PRYSNER—So we know Aaron Bushnell had courage. Far, far more than the commanders who rise through the ranks—the ones who take us to war, who sell it on cable news or in the Pentagon press room. What courage is there in pretending, in myth-making? A force for good, for democracy, for human rights, for self-defense… what a lie. A story peddled by cowards who casually direct murder from the safety of command centers, who sell the weapons from their boardrooms, or who spin fantasies in Congress. People who are revered as our leaders. Those who will no-doubt call Aaron Bushnell crazy or disturbed or misguided, but who really only see those qualities in the mirror.
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PATRICK LAWRENCE—More broadly, The Times piece appears amid flagging enthusiasm for the Ukraine project. And it is in this circumstance that Entous and Schwirtz went long on the benefits accruing to the CIA in consequence of its presence on the ground in Ukraine. But read these two reporters carefully: They, or whoever put their piece in its final shape, make it clear that the agency’s operations on Ukrainian soil count first and most as a contribution to Washington’s long campaign to undermine the Russian Federation. This is not about Ukrainian democracy, that figment of neoliberal propagandists. It is about Cold War II, plain and simple.
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FRED REED—America’s foreign policy makes it hated in most of the world. It seems murderous, thuggish, brutal, a menace to everyone. For example, the U.S. killed over a million people in Iraq. This does not bother Americans. Since 2000 it has destroyed Iraq, Syria, Libya, enters its eighteenth year of butchering Afghans, bombs Somalia, sends troops to Africa. It militarily threatens North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, seeks to destroy the economies of Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, China. It sanctions Europe. No other country does this.
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GODFREE ROBERTS—Mao, a passionate developmentalist, had offered to travel to Washington in 1944 to talk with President Roosevelt, “China must develop. This can only be done by free enterprise. Chinese and American interests fit together, economically and politically. America need not fear that we will not be co-operative. We cannot risk any conflict”. Mao’s message never reached the President so, in 1949, he wrote Truman, then Eisenhower. Both ignored him.
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BRIAN BERLETIC—The editor of The New Atlas files a haunting message in homage to Aaron Bushnell’s sacrifice for the sake of Gaza’s salvation. Moral cowards will attack him as being an extremist or a mental case, but Bushnell was not mental. He simply woke up to the horrors of what his country does and has been doing, and wanted no part of it. Bushnell chose self-immolation to arouse attention and hopefully action against the perverted and hypocritical involvement of America and its equally complicit allies in possibly one of the greatest crimes in history. It took a long time and millions of people to create this evil system; it will take a long time and millions of people to bring it down, notes Berletic. So join those who are working to build a different world. Support the alternative media. Break out of your isolation. Fight today, fight tomorrow, don’t give up.
