Room for a View

NEWS & VIEWS
Short Takes, Updates & Calls to Action

US Military Backs Down on Oppression of Women

In January, Chronogram reported on Lt. Col. Martha McSally, this nation’s highest ranking female fighter pilot, who was suing the US Defense Department over its dress and behavior policies for female military employees in Saudi Arabia. McSally had complained for years that women serving at US bases in Saudi Arabia were required to wear head-to-toe coverings, called abayas, whenever they traveled off the base. They were also required to be accompanied by a man, and were not allowed to drive. These were not Saudi Arabian rules, they were US military rules, adopted in 1995 by The US Central Command to accommodate Saudi religious sensibilities.

It now appears that McSally has won, though not in a legal sense. While avoiding any mention of her suit, the Defense Department has quietly reversed its restrictive rules governing the attire of female employees stationed in Saudi Arabia.
Chronogram believes this change was due to media pressure as much as to McSally’s courageous lawsuit. We would like to thank the US military for reading, and offer a free subscription to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, to help him keep abreast of these issues.

—Todd Paul

New Wildlife Law is for the Birds

The Hudson Valley Raptor Center in Stanfordville has launched a campaign to defeat proposed federal legislation that could lead to the needless euthanasia of thousands of injured wild birds. The center is asking for help in their letter-writing campaign.

The proposed rule, RIN 1018-AH87, would make a number of positive changes in the way wildlife rehabilitators are regulated. But the Raptor Center believes the bill contains serious flaws and would, if it became law:

Charge wildlife rehabilitators a fee for services they provide to the public free of charge.
Set a time limit of 180 days for rehabilitation of injured migratory birds, after which they would be turned over to government authority.
Provide that all imprinted birds (those emotionally bound to humans) would be turned over to government authority.

Often there are not sufficient government facilities available to house these birds, and this would result in needless euthanasia of birds turned over to government authority.

Instead, the Center calls for individual wildlife rehabilitators to make judgments on whether or not a bird should be euthanized.

The deadline to comment on RIN 1018-AH87 is March 6. Send comments to: Migratory Bird Management, US Fish and Wildlife Service, 4401 North Fairfax Dr., Room 364, Arlington, VA 22203-1610. Or go to the Raptor Center’s Web site at www.ulster.net/~hvraptors, where you can read more about this issue and join the e-mail campaign.

—TP

Victory for Swimmer’s Rights

Activism at the local level works. Just ask the folks over at Swim Without Interference at Minnewaska (SWIM). The efforts of this grassroots organization over the past two years have resulted in the opening of a second swimming area at Minnewaska State Park slated to open this June.

Located at the former “Family Beach” on the east side of Lake Minnewaska, qualified swimmers aged 18 and over will be allowed to swim within a 200-yard-long roped-in area. This is nearly eight times the distance available in the state park’s existing swimming area.
Swimmers able to pass a various stroke 500-yard continuous swim test will be certified by an association consisting of SWIM members. The association would also have to provide insurance, issue photo IDs to its members, and have them sign a waiver.

“We believe we have achieved a real breakthrough in regard to distance swimming at Lake Minnewaska,” said Judy Mage, coordinator of SWIM, after a two-hour meeting with officials from the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation on Monday, February 11 at the Park. The State delegation, headed by Deputy Commissioner Julia Stokes, offered SWIM the proposal. Another meeting will be held on March 4, to work out kinks in the plan.

“There are problems and unresolved issues,” explained Mage in a letter to SWIM supporters, but the proposal represents real progress.
SWIM would like to see swimming hours extended, making the lake accessible to those who would like to swim after work on weekdays; the existing swimming area (nicknamed the “bathtub”), expanded to accommodate people unable to walk the 20 minutes to the new beach area, or unable to qualify as distance swimmers; and the swimming season extended beyond its current Memorial Day to Labor Day length.

The historical dearth of qualified lifeguard applicants is seen as a main stumbling block to the resolution of these problems, despite the offering of an hourly wage of $12 per hour ($24 on holidays) and the chance to earn as much as $5,000 over the course of the summer. SWIM has been trying to get the word out to high school and college students that the ideal summer job awaits them. To become “qualified” an applicant must take and pass a 40-hour lifeguard test with a price tag of $275. The certification is good for three years.

For those interested in registering for life guard classes, contact the American Red Cross at 471-0200 (Dutchess County), 338-7020 (Ulster County).

SWIM invites all those interested in qualifying for membership in a Minnewaska distance swimming association to write SWIM at 171 Huguenot St. New Paltz, NY 12561; call 255-7671; or e-mail swimfreeny@yahoo.com.

—Lorna Tychostup

Bush Plans New Goverment
Propaganda Office

With the US engaged in a war of indefinite length against a constantly shifting enemy, the Bush administration’s Orwellian overtones are getting harder to ignore. The newest development is a permanent office of propaganda Bush wants to set up to “communicate US foreign policy to a global audience in times of peace as well as war,” according to White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett.

As reported in the February 19 New York Times, the Bush administration feels that “the intense shaping of information ... that occurred during the fighting in Afghanistan should become a permanent feature of national security policy.”
This new office would “spread a positive image of the United States around the world and combat anti-Americanism.” As such, it would be entirely separate from—though coordinated with—the Office of Strategic Influence at the Pentagon, which, according to the Times, would “disseminate information, and possibly even disinformation, in foreign media as part of an aggressive campaign by the military to promote American policies overseas.”

According to Times columnist Maureen Dowd, General Simon Worden, the head of the OSI, “envisions a mission of psychological operations, or psyops, that ‘goes from the blackest of black programs to the whitest of white’.” Dowd also quotes former Defense Secretary William Cohen as saying, “We are talking about deceiving the media and the public in general in foreign countries, and that would be a mistake.”
A media advisory from FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting) states, “According to the New York Times, ‘one of the military units assigned to carry out the policies of the Office of Strategic Influence’ is the US Army’s Psychological Operations Command (PSYOPS).”

As Dowd notes, the Bush administration has been notably close-mouthed since its inception, appearing to view the free press as an obstruction and government business as inappropriate for public consumption. From Enron to Afghanistan, Bush and Cheney have stonewalled public access to the kind of information that is critical in a democracy. Now, the only information we get may be disinformation. —TP