Since you've made such a point of challenging my ability to know what I'm talking about, perhaps you could provide your evidence to show that Congress avoided the term "Declaration of War" specifically so it could avoid its obligations under the Geneva Convention?
We more or less just did.
The Bush administration specifically asked Congress not to declare war. I looked that up for someone several months ago who was under the assumption that Congress just wimped out. I found a report of it on Google Groups search from shortly after 9/11. There were probably a host of reasons that a declaration of war was not desired. I dont have time for more research today.