The images that streamed from inside Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul were a propaganda dream for the United States government. Afghan women, after years of cruel subjugation by the Taliban, were daring to shed their veils and to expose their faces once again to the world and to sunlight. It was America – with a little help from Britain – that had made this happen. The smiles shone brightly; eyes shimmered with joy.
Cut now to the Prince Sultan US Air Force Base in Saudi Arabia. An American fighter pilot is climbing into a Chevrolet Suburban to make a trip off-base. The pilot, a Lieutenant Colonel, is not wearing Air Force uniform. This officer of the US military is instead wearing something called an "abaya". A slightly less restrictive version of the burqa, it is a suffocating, head-to-toe robe that allows no glimpse of flesh and has only two slits for the eyes. (....) But the career of Martha McSally may be about to be shot down. She and other women serving in Saudi Arabia wear the abaya robes when they leave base because they are obliged to. US military regulations insist that servicewomen must always wear an abaya when leaving the base. There is more. Out of respect for local religious custom, Lt Col McSally may not drive the car herself. (That is almost funny. She can pilot a plane, but is not permitted to take the wheel of the Suburban.) In fact, she is not even allowed in the front. And she must have a male escort.
McSally, 35, is a veteran pilot of the A-10 Warthog – a single-seat aircraft with a powerful gun that is usually deployed to seek out and destroy tanks. She has patrolled the hazardous no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq. Most recently, she been given control of all search-and-rescue missions in Iraq, and now also in Afghanistan. Hers has been a dream career, marred only by her deep-seated distaste for the abaya regulation. She first heard of it in 1995, long before she was herself sent to Saudi Arabia, and has been fighting ever since to have it rescinded. Apparently, however, her commanders have not been listening. And so now she is taking the route of litigation and suing the Pentagon for violating her constitutional rights. More specifically, she is suing the man in charge, the US Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. (...) --------------------------------
Lt. Col. McSally is not your ideal womens' rights campaigner, being a tool of the US imperial military and flying a plane famous for spraying DU ammo all over Iraq (which fact The Independent tastefully overlooks. "hazardous no-fly zones" indeed. Hazardous for whom?), but good for her for putting it to the Pentagon.
Some Turkish trivia: The first Turkish female military pilot was Sabiha Gokcen, who had the dubious honor of bombing the rebellious Kurds in Dersim in 1937. The first female Turkish jet fighter pilot and also the first in NATO was Leman Bozkurt Altıncekic. She flew F-84 fighters and T-33 trainers between 1958-1967. The first Turkish female air force casualty was Ayfer Gok, who crashed in an F-5 trainer last year. Female enrolment in the Air Combat School continues to increase and the militantly secular armed forces do everything to encourage this.
Hakki