this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2025
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Yeah I might have been speaking a little too strong because I've seen you posting around here and I know you're no fan of the IDF. I'm not saying you have a pattern of defending the IDF, but I think you're doing so in this case by mistake.
Fair point. If he still had access to critical US intel, then leaking it would have been more productive.
Why on earth would the average person (including anarchists) understand how the intelligence business works? If you have any resources on that, I'd love to read them, because this would be very niche information that would be nice for the community to have.
No I cannot stress enough that suicide is not the only way to atone for what veterans have done, or even a good way without extra information (i.e. making it a protest, taking soldiers with you, etc.). If I knew Aaron Bushnell, I would have selfishly told him to stay around and organize protests and direct actions, and see if he could use his cybersecurity expertise to secure anarchist communications and sabotage imperialist systems. I cannot stress enough that I do not believe that Aaron Bushnell's suicide was "ideal", and I selfishly would have loved to see him do more. But at least he tried, even the teeniest tiniest amount, in an imperfect and brash way, to fix what he broke. The people we're talking about aren't even trying to fix what they've broken; they're just trying to escape it.
Correct. He was just another baby killer until he took action to fix what he broke. However, as I mentioned, he could have done lots of other stuff that didn't require him to set himself on fire.
Again I want to see veterans do actual productive activism, but if (and only if) they refuse to do that then I'll happily watch their suicides 🍿
Exactly what "damage" will the IDF be suffering from the discourse on here that I am (supposedly) - and mistakenly - protecting it from?
Are you trying to say it's not anarchists' business to understand stuff like this?
That doesn't it even get into the nuts and bolts of anything - but it suffices to demonstrate that an intelligence asset is worth far, far more than somebody performing hit-or-miss (but ultimately very temporary) stunts for the media cycle.
While we're on the subject of the Makhnovists - you did know that the Makhnovists, after taking prisoners on the battlefield, went to great pains to separate conscripts from officers (before shooting the officers, of course)? What did they understand that you don't?
Similarly, the NFL (Viet Cong) cadres that particpated in the Tet offensive did the exact same thing - they went to great pains to separate South Vietnamese army conscripts from officers in the towns and cities that they captured before "liquidating" the officers. What did they understand that you don't?
Okay... maybe I'm not anarchistically "pure" enough to get this - but wtf would be "selfish" about this? What mental process is going on here?
Perhaps you should learn where that term comes [from.][https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/09/27/vietnam-war-protesters-have-nothing-apologize)
Perhaps then, you won't use it in a way that actually helps the imperialists.
The people in question here aren't around to refuse anything, are they?
Intelligence is not my expertise - it's just an interest I gained because of my radicalisation (in my opinion, it should come with the territory). My actual expertise is in propaganda - I worked in it for many years.
Maybe you can tell me - if you were to use IDF suicide rates as a propaganda device to help drive a wedge, no matter how small, between IDF conscripts and the IDF officer class - do you think the discourse on this sub would be a hindrance or a help?
Not that it's not our business, but that it's simply uncommon to know. (E.g. I think that it should be anarchists' business to understand how complex dynamical systems work, e.g. to generate and distribute clean power for everyone, to optimize the factories, to make breakthroughs in medicine, etc., but I'm not expecting most of us to have dynamical systems textbooks lying around.) Thank you for the resource.
Yeah I'm 1000% with you there. I want to stress again that Bushnell's suicide was not an ideal protest, but that I thank him for at least trying in his own way to fix what he broke.
(Mods/admins: what follows is not a cry for help; I am not suicidal now.)
It's less about being "anarchistically pure" and more about having dealt with suicidal thoughts and major depression for most of my adult life. From an anarchist perspective, I believe we have a right to life as well as our right to end it when we choose as a function of our right to dignity. I.e. I'm saying this as someone who is probably going to kill myself when my body becomes a prison. When it happens, I don't want people who don't understand my situation to make it harder or impossible for me to end my life because they want me to stay around for whatever bullshit reasons they have. I'm saying that I don't know what Bushnell was going through, but I trust him enough to respect his decision. From my perspective, it would selfish of me to beg him to stay because him staying alive would benefit me (i.e. as an effective activist, as a comrade, etc.) even if for him, being alive might have been agony.
Like I gotta be real with you, maybe I'm just not as sensitive about suicide because that's how I'd like to go. I'm coming from a position where I'm not even telling IDF soldiers to do something that I don't plan on eventually doing to myself. Frankly, I'm more irritated that some IDF soldiers get to go out on their own terms in the privacy and comfort of their own homes without ever attempting to fix what they broke while the Palestinians they torture just get murdered whenever the IDF chooses to kill them. Like for me, suicide is a Good Ending depending on the context, so maybe I gotta work on that.
I'm confused? How am I helping imperialists here?
Yeah but they were. They had a chance to use their remaining time productively.
Simple: they had these people as prisoners. Really, the key was that they were temporarily no longer dangerous. IDF conscripts are still dangerous. IMO, they're more like conscripts during the actual fighting — i.e. enemies you defend yourselves and your comrades from, possibly by killing them.
I'm not a propaganda expert, but somewhere between help and neutral. If a conscript identifies with the IDF, as opposed to merely a slave to it, then IMO they're not radicalizable yet. This is a clumsy parallel, but when people say "Death to Amerikkka" I don't get defensive even though I'm from Amerikkka because I completely and utterly disown the Amerikkkan entity. I 1000% expect the same disownment from IDF conscripts and Amerikkkan soldiers, at a bare minimum. I.e., being able to read rhetoric like this and understanding that it doesn't apply to former soldiers who actually do fix their wrongs is a necessary part of radicalization. I.e., like I said in the beginning (although I might have said it elsewhere): veterans and conscripts who are trying to fix what they broke are not the target audience of people saying their colleagues should kill themselves.
... Are you a veteran? If so, none of what I have said so far is directed at you, i.e. if you're a veteran and you've come here, I'm assuming you're trying to right your wrongs. I.e., until I have competing information, I assume that being in an anarchist community and not having been immediately yeeted into the stratosphere filters out veterans who still pledge allegiance to the army they served in.