I believe the problem is you have to have a country you are fighting in order to have a declaration of war.
True, but wasn't Iraq a country?
Didn’t Jefferson declare war on the Barbary pirates? Going from memory here...
No you do not.
There was no declaration of war against anyone, ever.
This soured me on GWB from the get-go, since the State Dept. maintains (under legal statute) a list of Designated Terrorist Organizations, which should have been the focus of a formal Declaration Of War (I include Hamas and Hezbollah and Muslim Brotherhood, JI and all the rest with al Qaeda).
I believe the failure to do this will go down in history as a monumental stupidity signaling the decline of America.
That's why Jefferson went after the Barbary pirates without a declaration. Same reason that even Ron Paul supported the Afghanistan action. al Qaeda was not one nation. Remember, bin Ladin was a Saudi/Yemeni (still not clear which), as were 15 of 19 hijackers.
Who do you declare war against? The average Afghani certainly didn't have anything to do with 9/11, hell, the nation at large didn't have anything to do with it.
The Taliban got smacked around because they were sponsoring al Qaeda, and they're not in power any more.