The real ending ...

I also had that thought when the parents were in hospital. At least they didn't take the easy way out and have her survive.

And he still has his wife. Another reason he would not become a suicide bomber.

I saw the fact he was educating his daughter as the prelude to what was really at stake in the drone strike. The girl and her family were clearly much more moderate than the armed and uniformed men around them. Would knowing that have made a difference to engage the target house? More is the tragedy, that the Colonel did not know.


an old song goes something like:
I am the eye in the sky,
the maker of rules...
I can read your minds.

With all the cameras, it seemed there was no audio with any of them, and so, they could not read their minds.



Back away from what we as viewers of the film could see, and consider the limited information each layer in the entire effort had available.

The "spy bird" could see people coming and going, and that would provide identification.

The drone crew could see only what their camera focus allowed. The Colonel kept nearly all of the legal and moral decisions away from them. Their only objection to be raised was the CDE. (collateral damage estimate.) I would have to watch about the middle half of the movie again to be sure if the drone crew ever heard about the explosives inside the target house, but I do not believe they knew.

The guy with the white skullcap operating the spy beetle had a good view of most of the inside of the house, until the battery died. At that point, he could not see what was happening inside, and he really had no way to see if anyone left the house.

The best grouping of information seemed to be with the Alan Ricman character and the people at the table. Their focus was 'elsewhere' though, in the legality and placement of blame.


Since the beetle operator had been run out of the area by the soldiers before, he might have known that family. No one thought to ask him about them, or the girl in particular. I do not know if that was an oversight, or if the movie expected everyone to see the girl playing with the hula hoop as part of a moderate family, since the extremists had already told her it was a forbidden thing to do. The man who built the hoop for her was also moderate, based on that action.
The beetle operator was asked, twice by my count, to risk exposing himself, and risk his life to save the girl by getting her out of the area.


And speaking of that, maybe the girl's fate was somewhat deserved by her own deeds.
Remember the beetle operator bought, and paid for all the bread.
The girl went out and picked up the bread he dropped when he ran from the soldiers, who were shooting at him!
She had the money! She was greedy! She picked up the bread that had been in the dirt, and stayed around to sell the bread again.
Mistake. Big mistake. Huge!
Greed eventually cost her life in fact. Had she been satisfied to go home with the money for all the bread, there would have been no more drama in the movie. Did anyone else notice that little detail in the movie?
It is only a movie.