military industrial complex

On this Memorial Day

/ Tracy Abell / 6 Comments

Today, as neighbors fly their red-white-and-blue flags and the U.S. government-sponsored slaughter of Palestinians in Rafah reaches new levels of horror, my thoughts are on Aaron Bushnell who was a 25-year-old active serviceman (U.S. Air Force). On February 25, Bushnell self-immolated in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington. D.C.

Before setting himself on fire, Bushnell said this: “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.”  His final words were “Free Palestine.”

I wanted to highlight Aaron Bushnell today, in part, because I also want to highlight the reality of the U.S. military that recruits desperate people who see no other way to build a future for themselves. Levi Pierpont went through basic training with Aaron Bushnell and the two became friends. After a year-long process, Pierpont was released from the military as a conscientious objector in 2023. In this opinion piece published after Bushnell’s death, Pierpont wrote of the talks he’d had with fellow service-people about wanting to get out of the military before their contracts expired:

During the process, I had so many conversations with fellow military members, a great many of whom could relate to the way I felt. One member spoke frankly with me, admitting that she had serious concerns with supporting the military. However, faced with the high costs of medical care outside the military, she commented: “If I have to sell my soul to the devil to get my children healthcare, that’s what I have to do.” [emphasis mine].

Think about that: because the elites have decided we in the U.S. can’t have universal healthcare, young people are forced to make the excruciating decision to inflict violence on strangers around the world–literally blowing up men, women, and children–so that their own children will get the medical care they need.

According to Pierpont, there are also those in the military who are unable to carry the burden of their role in violence and destruction. The above paragraph ends with this:  “Others were considering taking their lives as the only way to escape, and had no hope that they could make it to the end of their contract.”

I wonder how many of those flying flags today think about the despair felt by military personnel. How many of those flag-wavers would support service members who’ve served this country and now want out after realizing that what they’re being forced to do is an affront to their consciences and souls? What exactly does it mean to “support our troops”?

Today I honor Aaron Bushnell who made his own excruciating decision to very publicly protest the U.S.’s role in the genocide in Gaza. To be very clear, that’s not a death I wanted for him or for any of us who feel so much anger and despair about the slaughter and destruction being carried out in our names. Instead, I want an end to U.S. imperialism and the military industrial complex so that corporations no longer get rich off death and destruction. I want an end to people being forced to commit violence because their own country treats them violently via not providing for their material needs such as food, housing, healthcare, and clean air/water. In the meanwhile, I made a donation in honor of Bushnell and Pierpont to the non-profit Center on Conscience & War that “advocates for the rights of conscience, opposes military conscription, and serves all conscientious objectors to war.”

Aaron Bushnell’s final Facebook post (since removed) said this:
“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.”

Rest in power, Aaron Bushnell.

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Final note: In reading more about Aaron Bushnell, I learned about an earlier act of self-immolation in December 2023 by an unidentified woman holding a Palestinian flag in New York City. At the time of the article’s publication, the woman remained hospitalized in stable condition.

“Armed conflict…is an idiotic way to spend our shrinking carbon budget”

/ Tracy Abell / 10 Comments

It’s incredibly dystopian that the ongoing genocide of Palestinians hasn’t motivated every single human to call for a permanent end to Israel’s atrocities, but maybe this reminder about the climate consequences of war will push a few more people to join the chorus calling for a ceasefire.

Image by hosny salah from Pixabay NOTE: this photo uploaded in August 2023

Today The Guardian published an article written by Nina Lakhani: “Emissions from Israel’s war in Gaza have ‘immense’ effect on climate catastrophe.” The article begins with this: The planet-warming emissions generated during the first two months of the war in Gaza were greater than the annual carbon footprint of more than 20 of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations, new research reveals. (Note: emphasis mine).

The article goes on to say: According to the study, which is based on only a handful of carbon-intensive activities and is therefore probably a significant underestimate, the climate cost of the first 60 days of Israel’s military response was equivalent to burning at least 150,000 tonnes of coal. (Note: emphasis mine)

The analysis, which is yet to be peer reviewed, includes CO2 from aircraft missions, tanks and fuel from other vehicles, as well as emissions generated by making and exploding the bombs, artillery and rockets. It does not include other planet-warming gases such as methane. Almost half the total CO2 emissions were down to US cargo planes flying military supplies to Israel. (Note: emphasis mine)

In case you’re wondering, Hamas rockets in those same two months generated the equivalence of 713 tons of CO2 (300 tons of coal). The U.S.’s role, on the other hand? “By 4 December, at least 200 American cargo flights were reported to have delivered 10,000 tonnes of military equipment to Israel. The study found that the flights guzzled around 50m litres of aviation fuel, spewing an estimated 133,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – more than the entire island of Grenada last year.”

I’m tempted to highlight every paragraph from this vital story, but will stop with this: David Boyd, the UN special rapporteur for human rights and the environment, said: “This research helps us understand the immense magnitude of military emissions – from preparing for war, carrying out war and rebuilding after war. Armed conflict pushes humanity even closer to the precipice of climate catastrophe, and is an idiotic way to spend our shrinking carbon budget.” (Note: emphasis mine)

An idiotic way to spend our shrinking carbon budget, indeed. Please read this important story that highlights what we all know to be true: wars and aggression enrich the military industrial complex at the expense of people and planet.

Anything war can do, peace can do better!

Terrible feeling of déjà vu

/ Tracy Abell

I wore this shirt while camping this week. Its message is just as timely today as it was when I bought it during war criminal George W. Bush’s presidency.

The back reads:
What is the Downing Street Memo?
On May 1, 2005, The Times of London published a July 2002 memo from the head of British intelligence, who had just returned from Washington, to Prime Minister Tony Blair. Written seven months before the war in Iraq began, the memo says that President Bush, contrary to what he told the American people, had already decided to go to war and, even worse, that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” Meaning, the Bush administration was intentionally fabricatinng evidence linking Saddam to WMD and terrorism in order to trick the American people and Congress into going to war. 

The more things change the more they stay the same. The greedheads/warmongers of the military industrial complex can’t ever get enough.