A large set of such references are to be expected, of course. When a civilized people undertake killing on a large scale, you don't want others to think you ac

A large set of such references are to be expected, of course. When a civilized people undertake killing on a large scale, you don't want others to think you act without justification. So you write serious administrative documents claiming your government actions to be justified and your military claims to minimize collateral damage. But are such claims really true? Does the part of the military chain of command that actually does the killing take those claims to heart, as much as pentagon spokesmen do? Do the superiors of lieutenants and privates hold them to that standard, even when the laws of conduct become unenforceable by collateral victims, as in drone strikes? In several US wars, such claim were not taken to heart. Vietnam became infamous in US history as lacking a sound casus belli, just as the 2003 Iraq War has. In messy wars like these, one of the principal casualties is often the enforcement of the rules of war, especially when it comes to laws of conduct that are still in the course of being written, such as the proper use of drones or AI. This lack of enforcement becomes especially fraught when novel weaponry and its use is governed not by the military under its code of conduct, but by the CIA (who now runs most drone snipery), which AFAIK lacks an equivalent martial code of conduct.