Weighing in on President Obama's targeted drone strikes in the Middle East, journalist Jeremy Scahill did not mince words.

During his appearance on MSNBC's "Up With Chris Hayes" on Saturday morning, Scahill repeatedly said that such attacks, when they killed innocent civilians, amounted to "murder."

Asked by Hayes why he would use such a "loaded" word to describe the strikes, Scahill responded at length.

"If someone goes into a shopping mall in pursuit of one of their enemies and opens fire on a crowd of people and guns down a bunch of innocent people in a shopping mall, they've murdered those people. When the Obama administration sets a policy where patterns of life are enough of a green light to drop missiles on people or to send in AC130s to spray them down..."