After Ivan the IV defeated the Tar Tars at Kazan, he rode on horseback to survey his conquest and wept at the sight of the heaps of slaughtered women and children. He said, "they may not be Christian, but they are people like us." Today distant and detached commander in chiefs view the results of the mechanized slaughter they unleashed through the sterile medium of field reports and they dehumanize their victims with the clinical term "collateral damage."

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I would like to thank Burning House Press for featuring this piece!

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