Congresswoman Heather Wilson, a Republican in the 1st Congressional District, made the news this week calling for the reinstatement of the charter of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Service.
It seems that the Defense Department has decided to not renew the authorizing charter for the committee and Wilson, the only female military veteran in the House of Representatives, found this a dire enough prospect to issue a press release extolling the virtues of the committee that she was once a member of.
So, what exactly is the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Service, and why is its fate important enough for you to continue to read this column? Well, the committee was established in 1951 by then-Defense Secretary George Marshall to function as a civilian body charged with overseeing issues regarding women in the military and to make periodic recommendations vis-Ö-vis conditions for the fairer sex. Sounds fairly harmless on the surface, but as of late the committee has become yet another example of a bureaucracy and political correctness.
The committee is behind the campaign to push women closer and closer to the front lines of conflicts, advocates the redesigning of submarines so that they better accommodate women and has recently recommended the authorization of maternity uniforms. Previously, recommendations such as these were cause for sensible people to upturn their eyes and groan, and allowed Bill Clinton to score points with the feminist constituency when his administration gave them deeper consideration.
In the wake of the September attacks, the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Service and its recommendations seem seriously inappropriate and possibly even dangerous to our national security capabilities. In fact, on Sept. 10, the committee was discussing recommendations on the vital issue of breast-feeding in America's armed forces. But even if we weren't engaged in the most serious challenge to national security since the Cold War, the committee would still warrant closure.
The armed forces have one purpose - to protect and promote the United States' interests and citizens throughout the globe by killing or threatening to kill other people. Distractions such as remodeling sea craft for two sexes, worrying about maternity clothing and setting regulations for lactating mothers all degrade that primary duty and impose a dubious aspect of social reengineering on the armed forces. The services should not be used to further a narrow agenda that seeks to prove that women are identical to men and should perform all societal roles.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
What is even more troubling is that accommodations to women, like the ones that the committee routinely proposes, are not even moves towards equality, but rather promote a different set of rules for women. Rules that tend to be less about making the military as effective as possible and more about making sure that women don't have to change too much when they join the armed forces. Different standards for females degrade the overall quality of the military - a degradation that has life and death consequences.
To Wilson's credit, she does not approve of all of the panel's recommendations, and I am sure that she finds the committee's focus on questionable peripheral issues and excesses just as mistaken as I do.
However, she does believe that the panel could serve an important function by existing as an outlet for complaints - outside the chain of command - for issues relating to women and sexual harassment and that it could be rehabilitated by more sensible nominations by the Bush administration. But, if women are to be an equal part of the armed forces, why can't they function inside the normal command structure? With the prominence of major harassment cases I am sure that the branches have worked hard to put into place an apparatus to deal with them effectively, thus making any duplicate appeals system inappropriate and redundant.
It also is worth noting is the tendency of institutions to self-perpetuate. A reformed committee would still probably seek to expand its influence over other matters, continuing to be a dangerous nuisance. There also would be nothing else stopping a future, less focused administration from restoring the committee to its present form.
When bureaucratic programs are created, they hardly ever go away. In this case, the Bush administration has been able to terminate a program that is not only a waste of funds, but also one that distracts from our ability to defend the nation.
Congresswoman Wilson and all other Americans shouldn't think twice about authorizing Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Service's demise.
by Michael Carrasco
Daily Lobo Columnist
Questions or comments can be sent to Michael Carrasco at mjc_carrasco@hotmail.com.
