Michael Hastings Quotes

Quotes about:

• The simple and terrifying reality, forbidden from discussion in America, was that despite spending $600 billion a year on the military, despite having the best fighting force the world had ever known, they were getting their asses kicked by illiterate peasants who made bombs out of manure and wood.

  Michael Hastings

  Military, Fighting, Reality

  Michael Hastings (2012). “The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan”, p.203, Penguin

  47 Copy quote

• I have a deep-seated skepticism about the morality of violence. Violence is almost always morally corrosive.

  Michael Hastings

  Violence, Morality, Skepticism

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  6 Copy quote

• 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.

  Michael Hastings

  Military, War, Air

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• One of their major initiatives was getting all officers on Facebook. So the question is, why are these people who are there to train the Afghans being pressured to be on Facebook? Again, it sounds benign until you realize that the military's concern isn't the Afghans, it's convincing the American people that we should be in Afghanistan.Soldiers can put up pictures and say "See how happy the Afghans are because of our presence here." It's a way to directly influence the American people using propaganda.

  Michael Hastings

  People, Soldier, Realizing

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• I think when war becomes your life, I think its very difficult to have the proper perspective to be able to create a fully balanced policy.

  Michael Hastings

  War, Thinking, Perspective

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• A woman I loved [Andi Parhamovich] was killed in Baghdad in January 2007 – al-Qaeda in Iraq took credit for it … The memorial service with me crying over an empty coffin.

  Michael Hastings

  Iraq, Memorial, Baghdad

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• As the wealthiest country with all the blessings that we have, do we have an obligation to help the outside world? I think we do, as we have an obligation to help everyone within our own borders. The problem is that this automatically gets translated into: "What's the point of having a huge military if we can't bomb people?" That's the problem that I have. Our foreign policy is essentially our defense policy.

  Michael Hastings

  Country, Military, Blessing

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• I did an embed in Afghanistan on the Pakistan border in 2008. One of the things you realize when you're talking to low-ranking enlisted men is that no one listens to them. So when I showed up they loved having someone to talk to. That's a real privilege for me. The guys on the ground are the guys I care about. I've had the most satisfaction telling their stories. There is trust and there is stuff that you learn to hold back, especially when you're dealing with younger guys or lower ranking officers. That's different from the top brass who are basically just politicians anyway.

  Michael Hastings

  Real, Men, Guy

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• When you go into a country like Libya where a large chunk of the population wants the old regime back you could end up with a protracted civil war. That we're now in a stalemate was both entirely predictable, and predicted. That we're now relying on drones is disturbing. How vital can a cause be if we're not willing to risk American lives to defend it, and instead use robots and remote control operators? It gets me back to the larger feeling about the intervention - there's just not a compelling reason for us to be involved.

  Michael Hastings

  Country, War, Feelings

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• Look, I went into journalism to do journalism, not advertising.

  Michael Hastings

  Looks, Journalism, Advertising

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• Gore Vidal, Glenn Greenwald, Noam Chomsky, talk about how the U.S. became a national security state after World War II. 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 they demonstrate themselves to be. There's no shaking their orthodoxy. To me it was the most depressing thing, these full-scale military interventions firsthand for a number of years, seeing how quickly we can get involved in another war with very little debate.

  Michael Hastings

  Depressing, Military, War

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  6 Copy quote

• Afghanistan would have been difficult enough without Iraq. Iraq made it impossible. The argument that had we just focused on Afghanistan we'd now be okay is persuasive, but it omits the fact that we weren't supposed to get involved in nation-building in Afghanistan.In my new book, I open with a quote from Donald Rumsfeld. In October 2001, he said of Afghanistan: "It's not a quagmire." Ten years later there are 150,000 Western troops there.

  Michael Hastings

  Book, Quagmire, October

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  Michael Hastings

  Attitude, Team, Military

  "The Runaway General: The Profile That Brought Down McChrystal" by Michael Hastings, www.rollingstone.com. June 22, 2010.

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• When writing for a mass audience, put a fact in every sentence.

  Michael Hastings

  Writing, Facts, Mass

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• If the thumbnail version of the Iraq war was that Bush lied about WMD, the thumbnail version of Obama's war in Afghanistan is that the generals pushed him into a war he didn't want to fight.

  Michael Hastings

  War, Fighting, Wmd

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• The only thing I've ever regretted is not writing more; not being more honest; not saying how it really is in Baghdad. It's hard to get there sometimes.

  Michael Hastings

  Writing, Honest, Sometimes

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• By the second sentence of a pitch, the entirety of the story should be explained.

  Michael Hastings

  Stories, Should, Sentences

  Reddit AMA, www.reddit.com. May 29, 2012.

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• I had a recurring fantasy in which I took (Rudy Giuliani) out during a press conference (it was nonlethal, just something that put him out of commission for a year or so), saving America from the horror of a President Giuliani. If that sounds like I had some trouble being 'objective,' I did.

  Michael Hastings

  Years, America, President

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• 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.

  Michael Hastings

  Military, Stress, Cia Agents

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• The frightening aspect is that it's part of a larger effort from the Pentagon to tear down the wall between public affairs and propaganda, and essentially say there is no difference between information operations, public affairs and psychological operations. They have a new name for that too, it's called Information Engagement. What I hope people take away from this is that it's a window into a larger phenomenon. After a decade of Iraq war you have this Pentagon-military apparatus run amok using resources that they shouldn't be to try to manipulate U.S. public opinion.

  Michael Hastings

  Running, Wall, War

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  6 Copy quote

• General McChrystal wanted to be on the cover of Rolling Stone.

  Michael Hastings

  Stones, Rolling, Rolling Stones

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• I want to be the greatest investigative reporter of my generation.

  Michael Hastings

  Want, Generations, Greatest Generation

  6 Copy quote

• 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."

  Michael Hastings

  Stories, Information, Way

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• Despite failing to get bin Laden, the U.S. government and media portrayed the early Afghanistan war as a great victory.

  Michael Hastings

  War, Media, Government

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• I thought Gen. McChrystal was unfireable, that his position was secure.

  Michael Hastings

  Position, Secure

  4 Copy quote

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