Random Acts of Chaos

"What do the people who knew the Others think about their deaths? They were not the Others to the people who knew them. They were fathers and sons, and uncles and aunts, and nephews and nieces. They were the nice guy with the date stand, or the woman who smiled when she sold you some flowers, or the old gentleman who always stopped by the little cafe for tea and conversation. They were the guy who gave you the ride to the airport, or the young man who wanted to be a doctor, or someone who just happened to be going east on the road when the Hellfire came down the road going west. They are the people whose businesses are blasted to rubble, whose lives and homes are shattered, and who have to somehow cobble together the money that it costs to heal the wounds inflicted by modern ordinance. The Others don’t know that what we really meant to do was kill the “senior al-Qaeda figure” who was standing at the fruit stand. They don’t care, either, because we killed the Others, too, who were only standing around waiting to buy oranges. The fact that you weren’t targeted to be killed doesn’t make you any less dead. It doesn’t salve the grief of your family or placate the rage of your neighbors. Or vice versa, for all that. What do the Others think about us? Because, from their perspective, we are the Others, and the Others are sending machines to kill them."