"Civilian deaths" and "friendly fire" are not the same thing.

This is not a case of simply mistaking the target. This program authorizes mass killings under circumstances guaranteed to terrorize people we have no cognizable right to be targeting. They aren't workers in an Axis munitions factory.

These are foreign nationals (except the ones who are Americans) we are executing daily on the premise that some among them may be determined, through a process including no public scrutiny or review whatsoever, be or be "associated" with any one of dozens of groups who may or not wish the United States ill of some kind at some point.

Whatever our claimed good faith, the fact is the past two administrations have relied on laughably implausible interpretations of the law which are, as a matter of fact, so broad as to include the killing of just about anyone -- a right no one thinks this or any nation has.

No one will conceptualize these killings the way you suggest. They are not "accidents" in any kind of credible way. We are simply claiming the right to kill anyone, anywhere, along with a percentage of bystanders, many of whom by virtue of the circumstances-- aerial bombing of ground targets in populated areas -- are definitively innocent of any attack on us.

It's brutal, cowardly, and amoral. At the core of it is an utterly indefensible premise, which is that the United States will now be in a perennial state of "war" in all parts of the globe at all times, until no one anywhere wants to "terrorize" us. It's a claim that is specious on its face.

We wouldn't tolerate that logic from another country, not for one millisecond. We are completely undermining our claimed standing as a nation that uses force responsibly and defensibly. There is no need to get into ideological discussions about "imperialism" or exploitation of resources.

This is simply not the way a just civilization behaves, and we will pay dearly for it in 1000 ways.