On March 11, five women who trained at Aberdeen said that Army investigators attempted to bully and badger them into accusing their military superiors of rape. They said the military brass used threats and coercion to get the desired response to their questions.

Racism is a fundamental feature of class oppression in the United States. It permeates all the institutions of capitalist society, including the military. From the time that George Washington's order instructing recruiters "not to enlist Negroes" was overturned, Blacks have played a major role in the history of the U.S. armed forces. Many fought and died in the two world imperialist slaughters, touted as wars for democracy by the U.S. rulers. At the same time lynchings and race riots against Blacks at home were rampant. Military units were subject to official Jim Crow segregation until 1954, and de facto segregation for much longer.

In 1972, the NAACP's Task Force Report on Administration of Military Justice reported that, "systematic racial discrimination exists throughout the Armed Forces and in the Military Justice system." Black youth join the military in hopes of obtaining job training and education, but are disproportionately pushed into serving as cannon fodder for the imperialist army. Today, Blacks make up 27 percent of the Army, more than double the percentage of the U.S. population that is Black.

While accusing Army investigators of pressuring them to make false rape charges - including threatening them with prosecution for alleged consensual sex - the five women who spoke out also made clear that sexual harassment and abuse in the military is a reality. Although they themselves had not been raped at Aberdeen, other women had.

For decades the U.S. military brass has been responsible for some of the largest-scale prostitution around the world in the areas surrounding Washington's military bases. The degradation of women bred and perpetuated by capitalist society, which gets a particular vicious twist in an imperialist army, including taking the form of the abuse of enlisted women.

By standing up and fighting, through the civil rights and women's liberation movements, Blacks and women have won substantial gains against discrimination, including in the military.

Fighting to defend affirmative action and the other gains of these struggles is essential to maintaining and advancing those gains. At the same time working people should demand a full investigation of all the sexual abuse complaints, oppose any racist discrimination in prosecution of the charges, and condemn the attempts to coerce testimony.  
 
 
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