They knew exactly what they were doing.

Someone had devised an algorithm called “Daddy’s Home.” And when a cellphone belonging to a relative of a man on their list, their child or spouse, sent a message saying the target had made it, was in a house that he shared with his children, his spouse, his family… That’s when the message would get set to the pilots to go ahead. And when the American-made explosives broke through the roof, the young men and women in the targeting room listened in on those same cellphones. They heard how the strike went. They evaluated its success.

And weeks or months later, they confessed to this knowing, this part they played in killing, this responsibility, to a journalist on the roof of a building just across town from where they had played their deadly role.

NAZA is haunting. Even for those who, like me, already knew codenames like “Daddy’s Home.” Like “Gospel”: a list of targets. Like “Lavender”: the rating system for every human being in the Strip, deciding whether to put them on the list. Like “power targets”: the name for prominent buildings to be destroyed without further justification.

If you don’t know those words, go let the young soldiers who used them explain them to you. If you just saw the videos of what was done by them, go to understand how it happened. Either way, go to try to comprehend how all this can be packaged as a work, as a job, as a duty.