"Every weapons system, from the bow and arrow to the intercontinental ballistic missile, sometimes kills the wrong people."

"So why has the revelation that a U.S. drone strike accidentally killed two al-Qaeda hostages �� a U.S. citizen and an Italian aid worker � created such a storm of drone 'rethinking'?" asks lawprof Noah Feldman.

I haven't read his answer yet, but mine is: People aren't good at thinking in the abstract. A problem seems different when you know the story of one individual. That's why Steven Spielberg had the little girl in the red coat, and why Joseph Stalin said: "When one person dies, it's a tragedy, but when a million people die, it's a statistic."

Now, I'm reading Feldman. He observes that there has been a "fantasy of precision has been at the heart of the political and tactical appeal for U.S. President Barack Obama." But:

The real military advantage of the armed-drone strike over a conventional airstrike... isn't the precision of the hit. It�s the fact that a pilot isn�t being put in jeopardy. Yet somehow the idea that drone strikes are more precisely targeted has lingered, giving the technique greater public appeal....

When it comes to drones, the fantasy of precision is just that, a fantasy. Killing innocent civilians, whether they�re Americans or Pakistanis or Yemenis, is an inevitable reality of war....

Feldman doesn't directly address why hearing about 2 specific innocent victims causes people to rethink anything. Is it too obvious?