Drones are different in that they are unmanned (no risk of losing your own soldiers) so they are tempting to use for governments. Generally all attacks on foreign soil without a declaration of war are problematic.
Yes, but Obama would counter we are "at war" with Al Qaeda.
Sure. Its perfectly understandable why they do it, but its still a slippery slope.
The consequences of the idea of a "war" between an NGO and a nation state are far reaching and a break with the traditional international system. Terrorism used to be viewed as a form of crime which was the business of police forces and intelligence agencies and where the object was to bring the terrorists to justice. Making it a war raises the question if you can fight that war on a sovereign nation states territory without its consent, without having to declare war against that nation state. Its legally a very strange situation. The US is not at war with Yemen, but it still kills people on yemenitic territory incl. civilians.
I think its one thing to hunt down and kill terrorists in genuinely failed states without any established authorities like Somalia. But if you do it in countries with authorities in control it is basically an act of war against that state and this war should be declared.
Obviously some cases a tricky. In Pakistan where the intelligence service basically run their own foreign policy and some areas a outside government control, but the government still has a huge military and security apparatus its difficult to determine whether or not the state is "failed".
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