Major Harrison Mann
A conscientious objector
I don’t think it’s especially important why Major Harrison Mann resigned. It so happens that he resigned from US Military Intelligence, and made a public declaration as to why he was doing so, being that he did not want to make any further contribution to the United States’ aid to Israel in its conflict with Hamas. He’s the latest in a growing number of conscientious objectors who have resigned from official posts in the government of the US (including one who self-immolated) in opposition to American policy in relation to Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip.
None of that matters. None of whether he opposes Israel’s actions, or whether he is a Jew, descended from Jews who left Europe in the early 20th century, or whether he’s a Democrat or a Republican, or a soldier or a butcher, baker or candlestick maker. What matters is that he acted on his conscience, and he expresses it in a manner that I’d never before heard it expressed.
Previous resignations were announced by people who railed at the US policy in Israel, at Mr Biden’s refusal to let up in his support for Israel, and announced that they would not be part of what was ultimately a killing machine. They identified their role as being that of Mr Biden, and rejected it. I think that that is a natural reaction: just like the footballer who kicks the ball least during the game, if his team wins, he’s a winner; if it loses, he’s a loser. It is the destiny of the team that defines the football player’s destiny.
Major Mann puts a different gloss upon the same thing, but it’s a radical change in thinking. Later on in his interview, above, the interviewer asks, “What is your message to Mr Biden?” (at 21:00 minutes) and the answer is surprising. Mann has no message for Mr Biden, for Mr Biden is pursuing his policy as he sees fit. It is true that, on the footballer analogy, remaining at his post and following the policy dictated by the administration runs counter to Mann’s own conscience, but he does not view himself as a team player (or team betrayer) but as responsible for his own actions in se. Mr Biden will not change course as a result of anything Mann says, nor will Mr Blinken or any other government minister. But Mann will.
He is at one and the same time the highest and the lowest level at which he himself has power to take action; he is impelled by his conscience to take that action; and take it is what he has done. He has effectively announced that he is no longer a member of the team that he hitherto belonged to. He is now and always was a free agent, bound only under a contractual duty to do as stipulated in that agreement. He has dissolved the agreement and, although he cannot dictate policy to Mr Biden and his government, he has shown to the world that each of us is capable of dictating policy to ourselves and to our own self-governance.
His protest is not against Mr Biden as such; it is against his own complicity in what Mr Biden is doing.
Thank you, Graham