Just off the top of my head we have...

1. Drones used in a declared war against enemy military forces on foreign lands. I imagine everyone other than dedicated pacifists are generally OK with this one.

2. Drones used in a Congressionally sanctioned military operation against foreign "terrorists" on foreign lands. There's a lot of heat about this, but I think it mostly comes down to whether you think the military operation is justified to begin with.

3. Drones used against foreign "terrorists" in foreign lands, but without Congressional knowledge or approval. How would we feel if Osama bin Laden had been killed by a drone strike in, oh, let's say Bangladesh? This often seems to make people uneasy if they stop to think about it, but fortunately, since it's people they don't know getting killed very far away, they don't have to.

4. Drones used against U.S. citizens in foreign lands, without due process. This seems to be where a lot of people draw the line.

5. Drones used against U.S. citizens in the U.S., without due process. If we ever get to the point where a majority of U.S. citizens are OK with this, we'd honestly be much better off scrapping the republic and getting ourselves an absolute monarch to run things. We may be there already, but this would be definitive proof for me.

For #1, there is a distinction among foreign lands. Declaring war on Iraq does not reasonably lead to bombing Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, or other countries. As of now, we know of 8 countries where our military has used drone strikes and, not only is that unacceptable to even people other than dedicated pacifists, it is considered a war crime and increases the amount of people willing to wage war against the US. Our government (most republicans and democrats) now act on the belief that the entire world is a war field, and anybody declared an 'enemy combatant' without any proof or charges can be instantly killed. There is absolutely no oversight to this, and no due process. It's counterproductive and it's friggin expensive.

Sheep's milk cheese is the new market inefficiency.

I'm going with William Henry Harrison.

Isn't he a little old for you?

Not to mention dead?

Still, I guess a cheap date is a cheap date.

A hovering drone at the inauguration could have kept the rain off William Henry's head.

Declaring war on Iraq does not reasonably lead to bombing Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, or other countries.

Sure it does. Our enemies are not dedicated to any particular nation they are dedicated to a cause. We are at war with that cause and those who fight for it should have nowhere to hide. Anything less than this will be very ineffective.

The question is, do we have objections to assassinating our enemies, sometimes with collateral damage, when there is often no other feasible option for getting at them?

Not at all. And eventually we'll get over the idea of 'no other feasible option'. Even if you could squeeze a special ops team in there, why risk our men when a couple of hellfire missiles will do the job? The current push back on drones will seem very quaint in about five years.

Bill knows very little about air traffic congestion.

From a more recent mailbag answer:

There is a Seinfeld episode from the 1990s about Elaine dating some guy who has the same name as a New York serial killer; I can't remember what the name was.

(It was Joel Rifkin.)

The really great part about this is that Elaine suggests that the guy change his name to "O.J."

(Yes, the show is that old.)

Sure it does. Our enemies are not dedicated to any particular nation they are dedicated to a cause. We are at war with that cause and those who fight for it should have nowhere to hide. Anything less than this will be very ineffective.

Seems to me, though, that we need a declaration of war from Congress, one that has the words "Declaration of War" in it.
Otherwise, it's just "we're at war with anybody we say we're at war with, forever." And I'm pretty sure that's not what the Founders intended. If the President could do that, it seems like Washington (for example) could have claimed "war powers" against the Native Americans, imprisoned "Indian sympathizers" until that "war" was over, etc.

Seems to me, though, that we need a declaration of war from Congress, one that has the words "Declaration of War" in it.
Otherwise, it's just "we're at war with anybody we say we're at war with, forever." And I'm pretty sure that's not what the Founders intended. If the President could do that, it seems like Washington (for example) could have claimed "war powers" against the Native Americans, imprisoned "Indian sympathizers" until that "war" was over, etc.

Unfortunately, there is such a thing -- the AUMF... Congress wanted to dodge the issue and that monstrosity came to pass and still exists.

Sunset it, revise it, admit that giving ANY administration essentially undefined and unending powers to conduct asymmetrical war -- I'm all for it... I just think that, fundamentally, too many horses have left the barn at this point.

58:

Just as a matter of interest, as to the Civil War, how did the declaration of war against the rebelling states read?

Seems to me, though, that we need a declaration of war from Congress, one that has the words "Declaration of War" in it.

We did; the AUMF. That's more of a declaration that we got for most of our wars.

Just as a matter of interest, as to the Civil War, how did the declaration of war against the rebelling states read?

Dunno. Since it wasn't an international conflict (and we made damn sure nobody recognized the CSA's sovereignty) I'm guessing there wasn't anything formal at all there.

The AUMF is not a declaration of war with the words "Declaration of War" in it.
Congress dodged the issue, sure, but that doesn't make it right. And just because we've been doing stuff like this for years doesn't make it right, either.

I like Dubliner a lot. Those cows must eat fresh grass year round, its the sweetest unsweetened cheese I've ever had.

I only discovered it a couple of years ago and have yet to tire of it.

Well, what does make it right--keeping in mind that, as Justice Jackson once put it, I think, the idea is that this thing called our constitutional system should work?

I mean, we fought wars with other countries, made incursions into other countries, we fought internal wars, between the states and with the native tribes, and all that doesn't matter when it comes to precedent? I don't think that's the way to handle the decision to go to war or to take military action. Indeed, such a requirement might one day come to haunt us.

I used to be a cheesemonger.

Under the influence of this book I have been feeding my 1 year old daughter a cheese course with almost every meal. Today she had and enjoyed some stinky Taleggio for lunch.

That was a Final Jeopardy this week. All declarations of war were between 1812 and 1942.

Sure it does. Our enemies are not dedicated to any particular nation they are dedicated to a cause. We are at war with that cause and those who fight for it should have nowhere to hide. Anything less than this will be very ineffective.

Hook, line and sinker!!

Sheep's milk cheese is the new market inefficiency.

My favourite cheese, by a fair margin, is Manchego (from sheep's milk). My wife won't let me get chickens or pigs, but maybe she'd relent on a sheep.

Just as a matter of interest, as to the Civil War, how did the declaration of war against the rebelling states read?

Lincoln declared a state of insurrection existed, issued a proclamation about a blockade, and called Congress into special session. It would be unprecedented, as far as I know, to issue a declaration of war against a domestic insurrection. The Confederate Congress did declare war on the United States (after stating that Lincoln had essentially declared war on them.)

The legal history of the Civil War is exceptionally complicated, and of course there's quite a literature devoted to it: Mark Neely's Fate of Liberty is one of the best-known books, though it deals largely with how Lincoln dealt with disloyalty in states that stayed in the Union. There were lots of de facto agreements between the two armies about observing the laws of war, and also much confusion about how to deal with areas of seceded states that came back under Union control.

Also really good: John Fabian Witt's Lincoln's Code.