If Our Drones Are So Accurate, Why Do Their Missiles Keep Hitting Children?

Despite repeated claims from both the Bush and Obama administrations that missile attacks from unmanned drones provide a surgically precise means of eliminating suspected terrorists, U.S. drone policy has led to the deaths of at least 178 children in Pakistan and Yemen (the U.S. is officially at war with neither) as of December 2, 2012. While one hellfire missile is obviously preferable to leveling an entire block with a bombing run, one has to wonder how effective a campaign like this really is in curtailing terrorist activity. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that the friends and families of those 178 children are probably more sympathetic to anti-U.S. propaganda now rather than before the U.S. started dropping missiles on their loved ones.