Michael Hastings
Michael Hastings
Michael Mahon Hastingswas an American journalist, author, contributing editor to Rolling Stone and reporter for BuzzFeed. He was raised in New York, Canada, and Vermont, and attended New York University. Hastings rose to prominence with his coverage of the Iraq War for Newsweek in the 2000s. After his fiancee Andrea Parhamovich was killed when her car was ambushed in Iraq, Hastings wrote his first book, I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story, a memoir about his relationship...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth28 January 1980
CountryUnited States of America
people decision listening
The minute you start arming people in these conflict zones, things don't go as expected. We also need to look at precedent before making these decisions. Instead of listening to Muammar Qaddafi's rhetoric, we should look at how he's behaved. The fact is he's been making concessions recently. He gave up his nuclear weapons. He allowed hundreds of Americans to evacuate Tripoli. Did he crack down on his people who revolted? Yes, but that's not so unusual.
military united-states reason
Clearly the American military has been a force for good for the United States. There's a reason we have a standing military. But there's something to be said for having a much smaller military because then we wouldn't be tempted to get involved in things we shouldn't be getting involved in.
war stupid guy
Gore Vidal, Glenn Greenwald, Noam Chomsky, all these guys talk about how the United States became a national security state after World War II. I agree with that thesis. Essentially there's this bipartisan foreign policy elite who've been calling the shots for the last few decades and they're clearly still in control regardless of how clownish or absurd or stupid they demonstrate themselves to be. There's no shaking their orthodoxy.
war sacrifice reality
And there's this talk that we're asking soldiers to make the greatest sacrifice, but the reality is that civilians bear the burden of war more than the combatants. You're much more likely to get accidentally blown up or killed by a death squad than you are to die in a firefight.
running war military
After a decade of war you have this Pentagon-military apparatus run amok using resources that they shouldn't be to try to manipulate U.S. public opinion.
guy care satisfaction
The guys on the ground are the guys I care about. I've had the most satisfaction telling their stories. But when you're in combat with somebody, yes, a bond does grow.
war team giving
An information operations team was sent to Afghanistan to conduct various psychological operations on the Afghans and Taliban. The team was then asked not to focus on the Taliban but on manipulating senators into giving more funds and troops [to the war].
attitude team military
The general's staff is a handpicked collection of killers, spies, geniuses, patriots, political operators and outright maniacs. There's a former head of British Special Forces, two Navy Seals, an Afghan Special Forces commando, a lawyer, two fighter pilots and at least two dozen combat veterans and counterinsurgency experts. They jokingly refer to themselves as Team America, taking the name from the South Park-esque sendup of military cluelessness, and they pride themselves on their can-do attitude and their disdain for authority.
looks advertising journalism
Look, I went into journalism to do journalism, not advertising,
writing facts mass
When writing for a mass audience, put a fact in every sentence.
stories information way
The way the Pentagon and its defenders have pushed back against this story is to say: "They weren't doing psychological operations, they were doing information operations and public affairs. They were just helping us spin senators like we normally do."
military war air
The idea of aerial military surveillance dates back to the Civil War, when both the Union and the Confederacy used hot-air balloons to spy on the other side, tracking troop movements and helping to direct artillery fire.
military stress cia-agents
The fact is, psychiatric help is not widely available to CIA agents - and as in the military, there is a stigma attached to admitting post-traumatic stress.
stones rolling rolling-stones
General McChrystal wanted to be on the cover of Rolling Stone.