– Three of the Four U.S. Citizens Killed with Drones were Killed by Accident (Liberty, Blitzkrieg, May 23, 2013):
While most people reading this are well aware of Eric Holder’s letter to Senator Patrick J. Leahy that four U.S. citizens have been killed by drones strikes, the real story here is that it appears only one of them was killed intentionally. The others were apparently collateral damage. Interesting that “targeted” strikes only end up with a 25% success rate, and this is when we are talking about American citizens. So how many innocent men, women and children have we really killed in these strikes. Does anyone even care?
From Eric Holder’s letter:
Since 2009, the United States, in the conduct of U.S. counterterrorism operations against al Qa’ida and its associated forces outside of areas of active hostilities, has specifically targeted and killed one U.S. citizen, Anwar Al-Aulaqi. The United States is further aware of three other U.S. citizens who have been killed in such U.S. counterterrorism operations over that same time period: Samir Khan, ‘Abd al Rahman Anwar al-Aulaqi and Jude Kennan Mohammad. These individuals were not specifically targeted by the United States.
Did you catch all of that? That’s a lot of very scary twisted jargon that can basically justify anything. I mean “associated forces,” “outside of areas of active hostilities,” and “not specifically targeted.” We’re in big trouble and it’s not because of terrorists…
Here’s a link to the entire Holder letter.
In Liberty,
Mike