The communications by Livelsberger in days leading up to his suicide say he was not trying to hurt anyone else, just protect himself and raise awareness about security risks and mistakes. His final message provided direct testimony about White House-led war crime policies from someone who was compelled to participate in them – testimony that came at such moral cost that he felt he had to take his own life to expose the truth.

The following email was sent by him to retired U.S. Army intelligence officer Sam Shoemate, who then posted it to The Shawn Ryan Show.

Livelsberger’s allegations directly contradict the official U.S. military narrative from 2019. While his final message includes references to personal fears and contingency plans, including potential escape to Mexico, the core of his testimony aligns with extensive documentation from UN investigations and Brown University studies about civilian casualties. His direct experience as a drone operator provides crucial firsthand evidence of how the military’s public claims were forced by Trump to diverge from operational reality.

Livelsberger’s testimony about civilian casualties is corroborated by detailed UN investigations, including a special report about May 2019 airstrikes in Afghanistan.

UNAMA received reliable and credible information to substantiate at least a further 37 more civilian casualties (30 deaths and seven injured), including 30 children and two women. It is working to further verify these civilian casualties. UNAMA has not been able to corroborate information concerning the additional 69 persons reported killed or injured.

In one incident on 5 May in Shagai village of Bakwa district, multiple reliable and credible sources reported that three children were killed when an airstrike impacted their home. After one strike hit close to the house, the father shouted to his family members to run away from the house before a second bomb was dropped on the house. Three young boys, aged between one and a half to seven years old, were unable to escape in time. UNAMA has verified the death of one of the boys, as well as the injury of another boy around 12 years old who was in a neighbouring house. UNAMA also received specific information about the injury of a girl around four to five years old and a boy around two years old, relating to the same incident, and is seeking to verify the case.

In another incident in the same area, multiple reliable and credible sources reported that 12 members of the same extended family were killed and injured when an airstrike hit their house. UNAMA verified seven civilian deaths (including five children) and three injured civilians (including two children). For two of the children, UNAMA has not yet been able to determine whether their current status is injured or killed as information was received from sources at different points in time.

During the mission to Bakwa district, the fact-finding team visited an impact site where an airstrike on a house resulted in five civilian casualties (three deaths, including two children, and two injured), according to multiple reliable and credible sources. According to witnesses, two aerial strikes were conducted. The first one reportedly damaged the house. A few minutes later when people from the surrounding area gathered to see what had occurred, a second airstrike hit the same location, causing the civilian casualties. In addition to interviewing elders from the area and a victim of that incident, UNAMA visually documented the impact of the strike during the visit to the site. It has verified four of the five civilian casualties reported from that specific incident (three deaths and one injured).

The U.S. military justified these strikes by claiming the targets were drug labs operated by Taliban fighters. At the core of the UN investigation was determining whether these were actually “criminal groups with connections to international drug trafficking networks” as opposed to militant fighters working for the Taliban.

The U.S. military case relied solely on distant drone surveillance to claim they only hit legitimate military targets with no civilian casualties. This remote-only assessment directly contradicted the overwhelming evidence gathered by UN investigators on the ground who visited the many bombed civilian homes and interviewed survivors.

Livelsberger’s testimony, as a decorated combat veteran and drone operator, thus completely destroys the remote-only assessments. His account reveals how operators witnessing war crimes were forced to work under Trump White House directives that had deliberately removed protection of civilians from airstrikes.

The number of Afghan civilians killed in air strikes carried out by the US and its allies has risen 330% since 2017, a US study says.

In 2019 alone, around 700 civilians were killed, the Costs of War Project at Brown University says.

It is the highest figure since the first years of the US-led offensive following the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

The group attribute the rising figures to the US relaxing its rules of engagement in 2017.

To put it plainly the moral burden on service members like Livelsberger was made unbearable by Trump giving orders to cover up obvious war crimes such as civilian casualties.

President Donald Trump has revoked a policy set by his predecessor requiring US intelligence officials to publish the number of civilians killed in drone strikes outside of war zones.

The significance of Livelsberger’s testimony thus lies in how it illuminates the systemic disconnect between official policy, an operator’s reality, and the horrible human cost. His account serves as a crucial bridge between three distinct types of evidence of war crimes: the official U.S. military stance claiming precise drone surveillance with minimal civilian impact, the UN ground investigations documenting extensive civilian casualties, and the quantitative data from Brown University showing a 330% surge in civilian deaths.

This triangulation of evidence reveals a critical pattern: as the Trump administration implemented two key policy changes (relaxing civilian protection rules in 2017 and revoking casualty reporting requirements in 2019) it created a compounding effect. Drone operators were simultaneously given broader operational latitude while facing institutional pressure to suppress evidence of civilian deaths. This policy framework effectively trapped operators like Livelsberger between witnessing civilian casualties and being required to maintain an official narrative denying their existence.

The implications reveal a systemic failure in military accountability that created an impossible moral position for service members. When drone operators were pressured to validate pre-determined conclusions about civilian absence rather than report observed reality, it not only compromised the integrity of military intelligence but also forced them to choose between their duty to truth and their operational obligations.

Livelsberger’s final communications and subsequent suicide thus represent more than personal tragedy – they serve as powerful evidence of how policy changes at the highest levels created operational pressures that both increased civilian casualties and corrupted the moral foundation of military service.

His decision to speak out, even at the calculated cost of taking only his own life, suggests the depth of moral injury inflicted on service members forced to participate in a system that prioritized operational flexibility over both civilian protection and truthful reporting. The devastating human cost of these policies extended beyond the civilian casualties in Afghanistan to claim the lives of the very service members tasked with carrying them out.

Two people missing since the end of December have been found deceased in a Tesla underwater after it abruptly veered off an Interstate.

“For reasons still under investigation, the 2016 Tesla veered off the roadway and ultimately came to rest in the creek, which runs just west of the freeway,” a CHP spokesperson said.

Tesla has such severe hardware and software design flaws that sudden veered crashes like this one, killing everyone inside, are being repeatedly reported.

The company that insists humans must maintain an accurate identity and profile to use their services, has been stuffing its own platform with peculiar fakes.

As users began to sniff out some of Meta’s AI accounts this week, the backlash grew, in part because of the way the AI accounts disingenuously described their racial and sexual identities.

In particular, there was “Liv,” the Meta AI account that has a bio describing itself as a “Proud Black queer momma of 2 & truth-teller,” and told Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah that Liv had no Black creators — the bot said it was built by “10 white men, 1 white woman, and 1 Asian male,” according to a screenshot posted on Bluesky. Liv’s profile included a label that read “AI managed by Meta,” and all of Liv’s photos — snapshots of Liv’s “children” playing at the beach, a close-up of badly decorated Christmas cookies — contained a small watermark identifying them as AI-generated.

As media scrutiny ticked up Friday, Meta began taking down Liv and other bots’ posts, many of which dated back at least a year, citing a bug.

The 404 perhaps said it best.

Meta has not actually released anything new, but the news cycle has led people to go find Meta’s already existing AI-generated profiles and to realize how utterly terrible they are.

Oh Facebook, why does anyone still use you for anything?

The recent passing of a highly decorated U.S. Army Special Forces soldier highlights the urgent need for better mental health support for our service members, especially during challenging times like the holiday season. The Green Beret, who served his country with distinction, tragically died in a Tesla near the Las Vegas Strip following a difficult personal crisis.

Livelsberger enlisted in the Army in 2006 and served on active duty until 2011. He then had stints in the National Guard and Army Reserve before returning to active duty in December 2012 as a special operations soldier, the Army said. During his Army career, Livelsberger deployed twice to Afghanistan and served in Ukraine, Tajikistan, Georgia and Congo, the Army said. Among his awards: Five Bronze Stars, including one with a valor device for courage under fire; a combat infantry badge; and an Army Commendation Medal with valor. […] A law enforcement official said investigators learned through interviews that he may have gotten into a fight with his wife about relationship issues shortly before he rented the Tesla and bought the guns. …Livelsberger rented the Tesla electric vehicle in Denver on Saturday, and the sheriff displayed a map showing that it was charged in the Colorado town of Monument near Colorado Springs on Monday. On New Year’s Eve, it was charged in Trinidad, Colo., and the towns of Las Vegas, Albuquerque and Gallup in New Mexico, along the Interstate 40 corridor. Then on Wednesday, the day of the explosion, it was charged in the Arizona towns of Holbrook, Flagstaff and Kingman before video showed it on the Las Vegas Strip about 7:30 a.m.

As much as we should be talking about the more than 20 people in the last few months alone who died in a Tesla yet were almost completely ignored by this car company, their brash statements have been generating attention in this case for some of the most unfortunate reasons.

The incident has drawn attention not only for its circumstances but also due to deeply insensitive comments from Tesla’s South African-born CEO, who chose to publicly mock the highly decorated service member’s death rather than acknowledge the serious issues of mental health challenges facing our military community.

Such outrageously callous remarks about a soldier who dedicated his life to serving our country are particularly disturbing given the Tesla’s CEO’s recent history of anti-military anti-American rhetoric. Notably, it invokes an old pattern of 1980s South African pro-apartheid propaganda, where white supremacists framed U.S. special forces soldiers as stupid for supporting Black anti-Communist forces in neighboring countries.

Just days before this tragedy, while Livelsberger was on leave from his station in Germany, Musk published controversial statements in German media praising the return to an extremist political party – remarks that drew unprecedented criticism from German officials for aggressively endangering democratic institutions that U.S. military personnel are stationed there to protect.

The South African-born [white nationalist Musk] wrote… “Only the [new Nazi Party] can save Germany.” […] The editor of the centre-right newspaper’s opinion section, Eva Marie Kogel, posted… she had submitted her resignation in protest at the decision to run the article. Politicians from across the political spectrum criticised Musk’s attempts to put his thumb on the scales of German democracy, with the health minister, Karl Lauterbach, of Scholz’s Social Democratic party (SPD) calling his intervention “undignified and highly problematic” and Merz saying it was “intrusive and presumptuous”. Merz told the Funke media group: “I cannot recall in the history of western democracies a comparable case of interference in the election campaign of a friendly country.”

The American soldier’s final journey, which took him through multiple states during New Year’s Eve – a particularly challenging time for many dealing with mental health issues – serves as a sobering reminder of the importance of supporting those among us going through crisis.

This map of the long eight-stop route taken in a truck filled with highly flammable/explosive materials into the desert, illustrates importance of recognizing warning signs and the need for proactive support especially during leave and holidays.

Mental health emergencies deserve understanding and compassion, not ridicule. Livelsberger allegedly was carrying all his identification with him and left a note insisting his “stunt” “was not a terrorist attack”, which all was known to Tesla senior staff… making investigation of his suicide a quick and simple matter that demands proper respect and consideration.

This tragedy should serve as a call to action for better mental health resources and crisis intervention, especially for our veterans and active duty personnel.

While there continue to be very valid discussions to be had about the lack of vehicle safety in a Tesla, the focus now should remain on the loss of a valued member of our military community and the broader issue of mental health support for service members.

If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, trained counselors are available 24/7 at 988, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Military service members and veterans have a Veterans Crisis Line by calling 988 then pressing 1, or texting 838255.