Have We Heard This Song Before?

Examining the Eerie (and Depressing) Similarities Between Aaron Bushnell and Ted Westhusing...

At this point, it’s a safe bet that everyone reading this substack has heard about (or even worse, seen video) of the self-immolation of Aaron Bushnell, particularly since it occurred a while ago now. A synopsis those who have been protecting their psyches…

Aaron Bushnell, a 25-year-old US airman, died after setting himself on fire outside Israeli embassy in Washington on Sunday, 25-Feb-2024. He apparently yelled, “Free Palestine” before committing the act.

There is a lot that one could attempt to unpack from the event. Despite possibly disappointing readers, particularly those familiar with my work on LewRockwell.com (LRC) and elsewhere, I will not be substantively addressing the Bushnell suicide, except for sharing a couple Tweets that struck me and drawing some obvious parallels between Bushnell and Westhusing. That said, as the title to this piece indicates, there are ample parallels to examine, even peripherally.

First off, we have this Tweet from Cornel West, ostensibly in support of Bushnell’s “extraordinary courage and commitment,” although I sincerely struggle with such descriptions:

I would be remiss to not provide a rather pointed response to Dr. West’s (shockingly ill-advised, in my view) Tweet, from a poster who calls himself Viva Frei:

Little more need be said. Maybe. That is, about this specific act of incredibly tragic self-immolation. (One might ask if there is ever an act of self-immolation that is not tragic. That is probably best left for another post, at another time, and hell, probably by someone else.)

What strikes me about this situation—the death of Aaron Bushnell at his own hands in February of 2024—is how it reminded me of an article I wrote for LRC back in April of 2007. Even then, the suicide of a US serviceman, that one in Iraq, was relatively old news. Rather than attempt to summarize that piece, I am taking this opportunity—my initial substantive post on substack—as a chance to repost that article in its entirety.

The article is relatively short, although that is not the most important factor.

More importantly, it raises pertinent questions that, unfortunately, are largely still relevant, some 15+ years later. (As an added bonus, I checked to make sure the links still worked, and fixed the ones that did not. The ones I could not fix, I deleted. With the exception of fixing/removing broken links, the article is almost exactly as it originally appeared.) Afterwards, I will draw some of the parallels to which I alluded above.

Without further ado…

Who Killed Ted Westhusing?

By Wilton Alston

April 11, 2007

One of the interesting – and completely unexpected – outcomes from my essay on Pat Tillman was all the information I received about other suspect occurrences in Iraq. As anyone who has read my pieces can attest, I'm not one to be bashful in my open distrust of the state in general, and by extension, any group fundamentally enabled by the state, such as the military. That said, and even though it might be called, "old news" at this point in time, the case of Colonel Theodore 'Ted' S. Westhusing still caught me by surprise.

As a recovering TV-holic, I've seen more than my share of weird whodunits involving convenient suicide notes, disputed testimony, and obvious cover-ups. This case is just screaming for a visit from the criminologists from one of the 7 or 8 CSI television shows. (Horatio Caine in Iraq just seems to fit. Hell, he's already driving a Hummer and he wears sunglasses all the time, apparently in homage to George Clinton and Parliament. Make my funk the P-Funk!) Caine (David Caruso) is probably better outfitted than a few of our fighting men anyway.

The amount of reporting about Westhusing's death is both hard-hitting and plentiful. I offer a smattering below, with commentary on the more general topic of liberty (in some cases), just to set the table for what I will say later. As we are now caught in the afterglow of the Army's official statements about Pat Tillman's death, including an admission that he died in a fratricide, it seems germane to examine not just the Tillman case or the Westhusing case individually, but the larger matter of why these obviously needless deaths will continue to happen.

All emphasis shown below is mine.

• For God, Country, and Profit? – posted on "The Cud" website:

"Westhusing's credentials as an officer were impeccable. As well as considerable operations and administrative experience within the Army, he held a doctorate in philosophy and was an instructor at West Point in English, philosophy and, most importantly given what he would later claim to have encountered in Iraq, ethics."

"Westhusing volunteered to go to the war in the autumn of 2004, feeling, as Miller outlined, that it would help better serve the teaching of his cadets, and he took over the administration of an aspect of the United States' ongoing training of the Iraqi security forces. More specifically, he was in charge of the oversight of a large American security company, USIS of Virginia, who (sic) had been contracted to carry out the actual training."

• Military Ethicist’s Suicide in Iraq Raises Questions – posted at NPR website (audio):

From the audio, T. Christian Miller of the Los Angeles Times says, "It was evident from my reporting that ethics and morality were very important to him." (Note: The Cud article above provides a poor man's transcript of this interview with Miller.)

• Return of the Mercenaries – posted at the "Jamaica Gleaner" website:

"However, the enlistment of private firms in Iraq represents one of the most ambitious and possibly disturbing – developments in post-Cold-War conflict. For the U.S. administration, private armies offer advantages. Their casualties are not generally reported in the U.S. death toll, which reduces the political fallout of war. Equally, because they are not governed by military rules, they can be used for ‘dirty deeds.’ Not surprisingly, private security firms showed up in the investigation into the Abu Ghraib prison scandal."

• A War About Nothing (The original link no longer works.) – posted at the John Birch Society website:

"Separated from his family by thousands of miles, living in a moral universe he couldn’t understand, Colonel Westhusing took his own life. He held the gun, but it was the Bush regime, acting on behalf of the amoral Power Elite that it serves, that pulled the trigger. And the regime’s enablers (yes that includes you, Hannity) served as accessories in the death of Colonel Westhusing."

• Highest Ranking US Officer Killed in Iraq Was An Apparent Suicide – posted at the Bella Ciao website:

"Westhusing was very highly educated, holding an incredible three separate doctorate degrees. His degrees were in philosophy, Russian and military strategy. I do not think I have ever heard of any American getting three doctorates before!"

"Articles about Ted's unbelievable achievements, transcripts of his talks and presentations, and articles about him in general are here. Ted served as a consultant for the Discovery Channel's program on the Greek Trojan Horse. He also consulted on the movie Troy."

• Wishful Thinking Promoted, Truth Jailed – posted by Karen Kwiatkowski on LRC:

"The Army looked into the allegations of corruption that had been of noticeable concern to Colonel Westhusing, and (surprise!) found nothing to write home about. A government official (speaking anonymously!) had this to say, ‘As is typical, there may be a wisp of truth in each of the allegations.’ A wisp of truth, but not enough, never ever enough, to change what we are doing, of course."

• Hoppe on War, Terrorism, and the World State – posted at Le Quebecois Libre (and written before the war with Iraq was launched):

"Iraq (and Saddam Hussein) is no worse and no greater danger than many, many other places. It has apparently committed no foreign aggression and its alleged Al Qaeda connection is mere say-so. A war against Iraq would thus be a purely preemptive strike and hence set an extremely dangerous precedent. In light of this, it is difficult to dismiss the suspicion that in both the war against the Taliban and against Saddam Hussein matters of pipeline and oil concessions (rather than humanitarian concerns) actually play(ed) a dominant role."

"Indeed, one may even ask if it is not the U.S. (and Bush) that constitutes the greatest danger to world peace. The U.S. commands more weapons of mass destruction than anyone else, they have not hesitated to gas their own population (in Waco), they engage in economic embargoes (against Cuba as well as Iraq) which harm especially the civilian population and which, because of this, have been traditionally considered particularly shameful forms of war, and spurred on by the neoconservatives and evangelic fundamentalist the U.S. is driven by an almost religious – and self-righteous – zeal to make the old Wilsonian dream come true and make the world safe for democracy."

What Is Obvious

One doesn't need to dig too deeply into any of the information linked above to deduce a few things. In fact, a few things should be pretty obvious to almost anyone.

• The likelihood of winning the war in Iraq is low, at best. Given the lack of threat posed by Saddam before the attacks, the fact that we are now mortally locked in a war with no obvious end in sight is the clearest example of the insanity of an all-powerful state that one can possibly find. (More on this below.)

• Westhusing (ironically just like Tillman) volunteered to go to Iraq. The psychological power of the propaganda supporting continued U.S. imperialism cannot be overestimated.

• Even though a rather large number of Americans (now) think the war in Iraq was a mistake, nothing precludes the same process from being used – now or in the future – to start another war with some other country. (Only the fact that we're basically out of bodies precludes many more troops already being deployed to Iraq.)

• Following such an incident, the U.S. Army – the same organization that lied about Pat Tillman's death for several years – cannot rationally be expected to report the truth, particularly if anything unusual happened. Why would they? (Frankly, if you were in their place, would you?)

I noticed that Tillman's family isn't buying what the U.S. military is selling regarding his death. Good for them! We should all take a cue from them, if we haven't already. As an aside, I witnessed a particularly asinine episode of "Real Time with Bill Maher" the other night. The guests, both liberal and conservative, actually said that the Army's only real mistake in the Tillman case was just not admitting to fratricide initially, since either way, Tillman's death was still a noble one. Huh? What? (That kind of imperialism-is-good, Kool-Aid induced stupidity deserves its own essay. Maybe I'll get to it after this season of Heroes is over!)

What Is (Still Apparently) Not Obvious

It occurs to me, particularly as I recall some of the correspondence I got after my Tillman piece, that the most important and far-reaching consequences of any study of events like Colonel Westhusing's death are (apparently) easy to miss. To-wit:

• The U.S. almost never preemptively attacks any country that poses a legitimate threat. This is simple logic. Why would U.S. leaders have thought they could invade Iraq and be done so quickly if Iraq really posed a legitimate threat to the national security of the United States? It is laughable that people continue to buy that kind of justification. (Then again, we are talking about Congress, right?)

• No matter how we select the locales we invade, one unassailable fact remains: invading places you think might invade or otherwise harm you constitutes the behavior of a bully, not the informed foreign policy of a world leader. Look at it this way. If your neighbor comes over to your house and punches you in the mouth because he anticipates that you might be ill-mannered to his wife at some point in the future, he's guilty of assault, not protecting the honor of the love of his life.

• The fact that a man as learned as Ted Westhusing still felt it was appropriate to volunteer to serve in Iraq lays bare the true nature of U.S. military propaganda. While one might be inclined to opine, "Even a devoutly Catholic ethicist felt that killing Iraqis was justified!" it is really more complex than that. Still, can we really be that surprised when teen-agers think shooting their classmates is appropriate behavior? Violence cannot be used as a tool of peace abroad without being seen as the tool of choice at home.

One of my fellow posters on Stefan Molyneux's Freedomain Radio Discussion Board, "John," said it best, "a society ignorant of the fact that violence is only capable of generating evil will accept the expansion of violence as the 'logical' remedy for the failure of violence." Indeed.

Conclusion

So, who killed Ted Westhusing? The article linked from the John Birch Society provides a hint, but I'd go one better. We did. Every person who displays a "support the troops" magnet on their car killed him. Every person who stands around the water cooler (or posts on "the internets") about the desperate need for Amerikan intervention to stop the spread of heinous "Islamo-Fascists" killed him. Every school official who allows the U.S. military to recruit new killers-for-hire on school grounds killed him. Every person who is not absolutely certain that a standing army has no purpose but aggression and imperialism killed him.

He pulled the trigger, but we loaded the bullet. When we allow active-duty-dodging chickenhawks to determine the foreign policy of the U.S. – while we partake of important debates such as the effects of allowing Sanjaya to remain on American Idol – we cock the gun. (Notice that Westhusing volunteering to go to Iraq illustrates conclusively that he was willing to put his money where his mouth was. Not so for those who got us into the conflict during which he died!) When we listen to the vapid, if entertaining, debates over how much it may or may not matter if Barack Obama's ancestor's owned slaves, we take careful aim.

I am certain that no one wants to die in a terrorist bombing. I am also sure no one wants to die from a bomb dropped because they live where terrorists supposedly come from.

So, there we have it.

A piece originally published in 2007, via what was at that time—and quite possibly still is—the leading libertarian on-line magazine in the world. (At least, that what Lew’s publicist used to say!) One might argue that some of my analysis from back then was flawed, or that the benefits of hindsight might change my point-of-view in some cases. While either of those things could be true, I will not take any time defending a piece published so long ago. (For the record, my point-of-view is largely unchanged.)

Fast forward to 2024, and in response to another war, being waged in another place, against another supposed enemy, another US serviceman kills himself. Other factors about the current case are different, though. The US is not actually waging this war—the war that ostensibly drove Airman Bushnell to take his own life—at least not directly. This war is being waged by one of our allies. Some might even call Israel a “key” ally. The most striking difference is this suicide occurred in full view, in public, on US soil.

Someone once said, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” (As an aside, the first use of that phrase was supposedly by French critic, journalist and novelist Alphonse Karr in 1849.) He was on to something. In this case, some of those “same things” are somewhat obvious.

1. The last sentences from my original piece apply just as much to people who live in Gaza—some of whom certainly might fall victim to Israeli shells—as to any “non-combatant” in the Persian Gulf. No one can reasonably argue this point.

2. Both Colonel Westhusing and Airman Bushnell killed themselves, ostensibly in response to what they had seen, or knew about, US involvement in the conflicts in question. I have long believed the worst thing you can imagine about the government is the type of stuff they already got bored with doing.

3. Unlike those of us lucky enough to be chiming about such matters via the safety of the Internet, Airman Bushnell sought to make a statement more obvious than did Colonel Westhusing, and in doing so, drive change. (What change he sought to make is unclear, at least to me.) To be frank, despite the rantings such as that from West, I do not think he succeeded. Nor am I deluded enough to believe that pieces such as this one will drive change either.

4. The underlying drivers—the ethical drivers, not the psychological causes—for both suicides are almost identical, despite the decades between them. This is the primary point I attempted to illustrate all those years ago on LRC. It is also the point upon which I will focus now. The state still makes war despite what logic and morality might dictate. As well, the state still uses that violence and its concomitant narrative to further entrench itself as a necessary component of our lives.

Randolph Bourne opined upon and explored the connection between patriotism, war, and the State in an essay from 1918. Not surprisingly, war remains the health of the state.

War is the health of the State. It automatically sets in motion throughout society those irresistible forces for uniformity, for passionate cooperation with the Government in coercing into obedience the minority groups and individuals which lack the larger herd sense. The machinery of government sets and enforces the drastic penalties; the minorities are either intimidated into silence, or brought slowly around by a subtle process of persuasion which may seem to them really to be converting them. Of course, the ideal of perfect loyalty, perfect uniformity is never really attained. The classes upon whom the amateur work of coercion falls are unwearied in their zeal, but often their agitation instead of converting, merely serves to stiffen their resistance. Minorities are rendered sullen, and some intellectual opinion bitter and satirical. But in general, the nation in wartime attains a uniformity of feeling, a hierarchy of values culminating at the undisputed apex of the State ideal, which could not possibly be produced through any other agency than war. Loyalty - or mystic devotion to the State - becomes the major imagined human value. Other values, such as artistic creation, knowledge, reason, beauty, the enhancement of life, are instantly and almost unanimously sacrificed, and the significant classes who have constituted themselves the amateur agents of the State are engaged not only in sacrificing these values for themselves but in coercing all other persons into sacrificing them.

Further along, Bourne notes…

In this great herd machinery, dissent is like sand in the bearings. The State ideal is primarily a sort of blind animal push toward military unity. Any difference with that unity turns the whole vast impulse toward crushing it. Dissent is speedily outlawed, and the Government, backed by the significant classes and those who in every locality, however small, identify themselves with them, proceeds against the outlaws, regardless of their value to the other institutions of the nation, or to the effect their persecution may have on public opinion. The herd becomes divided into the hunters and the hunted, and war enterprise becomes not only a technical game but a sport as well.

I will not attempt to put US support for Israel into further context. That subject deserves its own essay, by someone with greater insight than I possess. Nor will I fall victim to even appearing to take sides. From my standpoint, regardless of the actions of the Israeli government, the slaughter of innocent people is inexcusable. By the same token, and similarly, I will not blindly support the actions of any state, no matter which one.

The great tragedy of Airman Bushnell’s death is not its use for scoring points, for or against, your team on Twitter specifically, or in the media generally. While his death is tragic for its own obvious reasons, more troubling is that he represents neither the first nor the last such occurrence. I am certain that no one wants to die in a terrorist bombing or during a terrorist attack on a concert. I am also sure—just as sure now as I was back in 2007—that no one wants to die from a bomb dropped because they live where terrorists supposedly come from. Nor do I want to witness the sacrifice of other, often well-intentioned, individuals at the altar built by the machine of war.