Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas asked Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin what we might call an armor-piercing question regarding the mentally disturbed airman, Aaron Bushnell, who burned himself to death as a show of support for Palestine.
Namely, why was this clearly unbalanced man allowed to serve at all?
On Wednesday, Cotton sent Austin a short letter requesting an answer for this question few people seemed to have the courage to ask directly.
Referring to Sunday’s incident, where Bushnell immolated himself in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., Cotton asks, if Austin has publicly stated his priority of addressing “extremism” in our forces, how did they miss the signs of extremism in this unfortunate man?
Cotton proceeds to ask six pointed questions stemming from this first one, which was also shared on Cotton’s website.
Cotton asks Austin if Bushnell ever exhibited extremist leanings, whether the Department of Defense’s anti-extremism training included Hamas, whether Bushnell ever displayed “concerning behavior,” and if that behavior was ever addressed, whether the Department knew if Bushnell had access to classified information, whether the Department of Defense found evidence of support Islamic extremism in their ranks, and finally, whether any other members of our armed forces participated in anti-Israel actions that violated the Department of Defense’s stated policy prohibiting partisan political action from our armed forces.
Now, that’s a lot of questions, but they’re all offshoots from Cotton’s original one, one everyone is thinking if not saying, the answer of which has vital consequences for the safety of our nation.
How was Bushnell admitted to active service?
While some branches of the military have stricter and more rigorous eligibility requirements (for example, compare the Marines basic training to the Air Force), each branch has strict rules for admission into their ranks, based on both physical and mental competency.
Should this airman have been allowed to serve?
A man suffering with severe, crippling schizophrenia, for instance, probably doesn’t have the same chance of making it to basic training as does your ordinary high school graduate or college student.
So how did this fellow, who was so infected with anti-Israeli extremism that he took to burning himself alive, manage to slip through the cracks?
In recent years, our military has taken quite a vocal stance against so-called “right-wing extremism,” resorting to everything from canceling screenings of the film “Sound of Freedom” (which has nothing really to do with politics), to recruiting drag queens to advertise the military in a desperate attempt to solve the recruiting crisis, to passing Orwellian amendments to track current and former members of the military involved in “white supremacist” or “neo-Nazi” activities.
As for left-wing extremism, such as exhibited by Bushnell as he set himself ablaze as a means of protesting the “genocide” of the Palestinians?
We get crickets.
Our military is fixated on rooting out the “white supremacy” and “hate” supposedly infecting our ranks, ignoring the kind of delusion exhibited by Bushnell.
Clearly, though, the Department of Defense might want to retire their vendetta against anyone who is vaguely right-leaning in their ranks, and scrutinize actual signs of extremism before allowing another spectacle like that of Bushnell’s inferno.
Extreme leftism clearly exists in our military, but that takes a backseat to the specter of white supremacy haunting our elites like a Z-grade 50’s horror movie.
We need a fighting force that is 100 percent competent, both mentally and physically, and poor Bushnell clearly was not, at least in one regard.
And the fight against right-wing “extremism” is clearly not the way to ensure that happens.
