The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan

by Michael Hastings

Overview

The inspiration for the Netflix original movie War Machine, starring Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton, and Ben Kingsley

From the author of The Last Magazine, a shocking behind-the-scenes portrait of our military commanders, their high-stake maneuvers, and the political firestorm that shook the United States.

In the shadow of the hunt for Bin Laden and the United States’ involvement in the Middle East, General Stanley McChrystal, the commanding general of international and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, was living large. His loyal staff liked to call him a “rock star.” During a spring 2010 trip, journalist Michael Hastings looked on as McChrystal and his staff let off steam, partying and openly bashing the Obama administration. When Hastings’s article appeared in Rolling Stone, it set off a political firestorm: McChrystal was unceremoniously fired.

In The Operators, Hastings picks up where his Rolling Stone coup ended. From patrol missions in the Afghan hinterlands to senior military advisors’ late-night bull sessions to hotel bars where spies and expensive hookers participate in nation-building, Hastings presents a shocking behind-the-scenes portrait of what he fears is an unwinnable war.  Written in prose that is at once eye-opening and other times uncannily conversational, readers of No Easy Day will take to Hastings’ unyielding first-hand account of the Afghan War and its cast of players.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780452298965
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/27/2012
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	604,880
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Michael Hastings was a contributing editor to Rolling Stone and a correspondent at large for BuzzFeed. Before that he worked for Newsweek, where he rose to prominence covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was the recipient of the 2010 George Polk Award for his Rolling Stone magazine story The Runaway General. Hastings was the author of three books, I Lost My Love in Baghdad, Panic 2012, The Operators, and The Last Magazine. He died in 2013, and was posthumously honored with the Norman Mailer Award for Emerging Journalist.

Table of Contents

Part I The Plan

1 Delta Bravo 3

2 It's Not Switzerland 6

3 Lady Gaga 12

4 "Intimidated by the Crowd" 18

5 Arc de Trimphe 24

6 "A Violent Act" 33

7 On the X 40

8 The A-Team 45

9 "Bite Me" 51

10 The Photo Op 55

11 Totally Shit-Faced 59

12 "Dead Silence" 67

13 The Horror, the Horror 72

14 We're Actually Losing 78

15 Petraeus Can't Do Afghanistan, and We Aren't Going to Get Bin Laden 85

16 The Elections, Part I 94

17 Texts to Berlin 100

18 The Elections, Part II 102

19 Team America Rolls the Ritz 108

20 On Principle 116

21 Spies Like Us 121

22 "I'm President. I Don't Give a Shit What They Say" 129

23 The Strategy 137

24 "Let Me Be Clear" 149

25 Worshipping the Gods of Beer 153

26 Who Is Stanley McChrystal? Part I, 1954-1976 158

27 "The Jerk in Green" 165

28 Who Is Stanley McChrystal? Part II, 1976-Present Day 171

29 Reality Checks In 176

Part II Interlude: Dubai 183

Part III Afghanistan

30 A Short History of a Horrible Idea 201

31 Bad Romance 210

32 President Karzai Has a Cold 226

33 An E-mail Exchange: Come Walk in Our Boots 232

34 A Boy Born in 1987 235

35 Where Is Israel Arroyo? 240

36 Ingram's House 254

37 An Army of None 267

38 In the Arena 276

39 "I Didn't Even Know We Were Fighting There" 284

40 The Concluding Converations with Duncan Boothby, General Petraeus Face-Plants in Congress, and the Story Breaks While I Watch American Helicopter Pilots Kill Insurgents 290

Part IV The Graceful Exit

41 "Very, Very Bad" 313

42 The Pentagon Investigates McChrystal 324

43 The Media-Military-Industrial Complex 328

44 I'd Rather Be Eating a Burger 331

45 Once Upon a Time in Kandahar 336

46 King David's War 344

47 "Tourism, Not Terrorism" 350

48 Petraeus Does Body Counts 354

49 The New Afghanistan 360

50 Joe Biden Is Right 368

Epilogue: Someday, This War's Gonna End 376

Source Notes 381

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"An impressive feat of journalism by a Washington outsider who seemed to know more about what was going on in Washington than most insiders did." —-The New York Times

Editorial Reviews

Praise for THE OPERATORS by Michael Hastings:

 

"The life of a general is something to see, especially when it's Stanley McChrystal, America's four-star, rock star commander, at the height of his power and panache in Afghanistan. It's a hard story to get, and hard to tell it well, but in the hands of Michael Hastings, it's a world-class job of reporting and a joy to read."
—Richard Ben Cramer, author of What it Takes and DiMaggio

"The most impact-laden story of the year...written by a perfect specimen of the new breed of journalist-commentator."
—Barrett Brown, Vanity Fair

"An impressive feat of journalism by a Washington outsider who seemed to know more about what was going on in Washington than most insiders did."
—Frank Rich, New York Times

"The Operators is a troubling first-person narrative about a bizarre episode in U.S. military history, as well as a trenchant analysis of the disaster in Afghanistan. Hastings … brings a fresh eye and a brutally authentic voice to America's decade-old misadventure in Afghanistan.”
—Bob Drogin, Los Angeles Times

“The Operators seems destined to join the pantheon of the best of GWOT literature, not just for its rock-and-roll details, but for its piercing chronicles of a world gone mad.”
—Matt Gallagher, Newsweek/Daily Beast

“As the situation in Afghanistan grows increasingly muddy, [Hasting’s] disciplined adherence to solid journalistic practices and his acute eye for sharp scene setting makes much of the chaos comprehensible. Hastings has definitely taken up the traditional banner of the intrepid war correspondent, but he’s simultaneously shot it through with iconoclastic holes; the effect is illuminating on many levels.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Hastings brilliantly intertwines narratives…. Hasting's first-class, engrossing reportage reveals unsettling yet human flaws behind one of recent history's most lionized military figures, and a war which purportedly began as a response to"terrorism" but whose aims—in the author's estimation—remain ambiguous.”

—Publishers Weekly

"Superb... the book provides vital insights about the war not available anywhere else... One of the most eye-opening accounts provided yet...from one of the bravest and most intrepid journalists who has covered it.”

—Glenn Greenwald, Daily Beast

From the Publisher

Starred Review.

Hastings (I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story) recounts the events behind and beyond his award-winning 2010 Rolling Stone article "The Runaway General," which led to the resignation of General Stanley McChrystal and his replacement with General David Petraeus. Trailing McChrystal and his staff as they travel to Paris, Berlin, and Kabul, Hastings discovers how the nation's foremost "operators"-the special forces and other personnel on "the X...the spot on the satellite map where the action goes down"-regard the war as secondary to their loyalty to each other. Cavalier remarks about key figures and incidents ranging from the infamous cover-up of the cause of Pat Tillman's death to scenes with President Obama reveal the essential divide between military and civilian perspectives. Hastings brilliantly intertwines narratives, whether writing about the halls of Washington, war-torn Baghdad, or rudimentary lessons in counterinsurgency math, a system wherein killing two of ten results not in eight, but twenty insurgents. Hasting's first-class, engrossing reportage reveals unsettling yet human flaws behind one of recent history's most lionized military figures, and a war which purportedly began as a response to terrorism, but whose aims-in the author's estimation-remain ambiguous.
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Publishers Weekly

Hastings seems to be just the man to tell us what's really happening in Afghanistan; his Rolling Stone article, "The Runaway General," created a storm that led to the resignation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Here he relies on exclusive reporting in Washington, DC, Europe, the Middle East, and, specifically, Afghanistan to clarify what is really happening in that country. I'm betting that this will generate lots of interest.

Library Journal

War correspondent Hastings vividly recounts his explosive 2010 Rolling Stone article that got Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal drummed out of Afghanistan. McChrystal's unchecked remarks caused his firing, but things might have gone down differently if the general had taken a lesson from Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous. It happened in the spring of 2010 during a European trip the general made to bolster sagging support for the war. Hastings was invited along. The premise of the movie--a promising band experiences their downfall after the Rolling Stone reporter they accept into their circle writes an unflattering (though accurate) story about them--perfectly mirrors the situation in which McChrystal and his entourage would become embroiled. Like Almost Famous, Hastings' astute war memoir is pitch-perfect in demonstrating the challenges that all diligent journalists face. If someone isn't actively working hard to shut you down, they're busy trying to co-opt you. In this case, a certified war hero and his hotshot staff were too confident in their ability to woo a puff piece out of a young writer. The author's frank discussion of these subtler forms of coercion, continuously employed to undermine accurate reporting, is undoubtedly courageous. According to Hastings, McChrystal and his highly accomplished cadre of elite military men operated in a bubble so thick, they foolishly believed they could mold not only a magazine profile to their liking, but also an entire country. As the situation in Afghanistan grows increasingly muddy, the author's disciplined adherence to solid journalistic practices and his acute eye for sharp scene setting makes much of the chaos comprehensible. Hastings has definitely taken up the traditional banner of the intrepid war correspondent, but he's simultaneously shot it through with iconoclastic holes; the effect is illuminating on many levels. An exciting and enlightening exposé of the war in Afghanistan, the dangers of concentrated power and the public's need to know.

Kirkus Reviews