“is a ‘surgical strike’ by a Predator actually less risky than a snatch-and-grab by a small special forces team? I can’t see how…”

Really? You see no greater risk in sending in troops who could be killed, ambushed, caught, paraded in front of cameras, etc.? Those kidnapping operations are a lot more dangerous and prone to snafu than you seem to think they are, and they’re obviously no less a violation of sovereignty. It also might occur to you to ask whether the preference for zero boots op’s is ours, or Islamabad’s, or both.

In principle, though, your main point is unassailable–we need to have iron-clad respect for sovereignty where it exists. The simple fact is that Pakistan exercises virtually no effective sovereignty in many of the places you’re talking about. Obviously, Yemen is a different case, and there’s no arguing–to my way of thinking, and yours, apparently–that these kinds of missile attacks are very dirty, hypocritical business where there is de jure sovereignty and we have been granted no explicit permission.

But when the soveriegn authorities don’t issue anything more than a limp, formal protest in the local newspaper, you should probably bury a few assumptions about what did and didn’t get said behind closed doors in the hours before the attack.