Tuesday March 27th at about 9 am a banner was dropped reading “650,000 dead and they cry about windows.”

Recently much has been said in various channels about the demonstration on March 19th that ended with the vandalism of an Army Recruiting Center. Many have been quick to condemn these actions and the 21 youths (most of whom were arrested for merely fitting a profile and being on the east side) arrested that evening dismissing their actions as poorly thought-out and criminal. The debate has remained framed around this instance of protest violence, ignoring the larger context of the action.

In short: this country has been at war for nearly six years and has brought destruction and near civil war to two countries, with hundreds of thousands dead, many more wounded physically or emotionally, and millions of dollars of infrastructure, homes, etc destroyed. That this state of war can become so normalized that it is met with little more than a whimper of discontent, while a few broken windows bring everyone to arms, is the height of absurdity and speaks to the real disconnect United States citizens have from the rest of the world.

Throughout the globe, from the epicenter of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to American imperial allies in Europe and South America, resistance to this war has taken many varied forms, including destruction of property. Indeed, those who wage wars of empire understand little better than violence and as they use it with scant concern, we should not be so hesitant to throw it back in their faces when we can. The largest protest movement in decades, perhaps ever, could not stop the war in Iraq and even smaller, completely ignored peaceful events have no chance of impacting those in power now. If we want to get their attention and truly resist empire, we must not exempt any of the tools at our disposal. Even if we cannot agree on tactics entirely, we must recognize our allies where we see them and support our comrades in struggle when they find themselves threatened by the state. The banner drop today is a small show of solidarity with those arrested and an attempt to reframe the context of this debate around the extreme damage this war has wrought, instead of the mild damage enacted by some few who are sick of being ignored; sick of not striking back against the cloud of death that surrounds us in the heart of the empire.