Holder: We Droned 3 of 4 Americans By Accident. Oops.

Danger Room writes Holder: We Droned 3 of 4 Americans By Accident. Oops..

"In an extraordinary admission, Attorney General Eric Holder has told Congress that U.S. drone strikes since 2009 have killed four Americans — three of whom were ‘not specifically targeted.’

For all the effort that the Obama administration has gone to in asserting that its drones only kill the people that the administration intends to kill, Holder wrote in a letter today to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) that Samir Khan, 16-year old Abdulrahman Awlaki and Jude Kenan Mohammad were ‘not specifically targeted by the United States.’ The fourth American to die in a drone strike since 2009 was Abdulrahman’s father Anwar Awlaki, a radical propagandist whom the U.S. killed in Yemen in 2011.

The five page letter, obtained and published by Charlie Savage of The New York Times, does not explain the circumstances that led to the unintentional killings of Khan, Mohammad and the younger Awlaki. Holder does not apologize for the killings, nor explain whether their deaths resulted from errant targeting, mistaken identity or another circumstance."

It's not really the drones I mind, it's the extra-judicial use. If a cop accidentally a civilian there's an investigation. That's the case if they do it as an accident while chasing a suspect or if they do it as cold blooded murder. The investigation is how we figure out which it was. Clearly being on a battlefield during a war is different, but we do investigate when US soldiers are accused of killing civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan and we certainly would if they were accused of killing a US citizen. Using a drone should be no different than "using" a soldier and there needs to be due process to target a US citizen.