unmeant

But nothing in “Born to Run” rings to me as unmeant or punch-pulling.

In fact, for a long time, American officials associated with Washington’s drone assassination campaigns and “signature strikes” in the backlands of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen claimed that there were no bodies to count, that the CIA’s drones were so carefully handled and so “precise” that they never produced an unmeant corpse — not a child, not a parent, not a wedding party.

If, however unmeant, the U.S. essentially becomes the air force over Syria for al-Qaeda-branded and other jihadist outfits, unleashing them to take further territory, that would undoubtedly create even more unsettled and unsettling conditions across the region.

It became one of those vague expressions of regret, the emotion you experience when you tread on someone's toe in a crowded lift, not quite unmeant but not actually meaning anything either.

Surely an accident so opportune, a stroke of mercy and providence so unlikely--for the odds against the officer's presence were immense--could not be unmeant, could not be for nothing!