On April 16th 2010, Michael Hastings spent the night in Kitty O'Shea's Irish pub in Paris with General Stanley McChrystal and his handpicked inner circle. By midnight they were all three sheets to the wind, linking arms and chanting 'Afghanistan!' at the top of their lungs. It was day two of what would turn out to be an extraordinary month. Soon after Hastings flew to Afghanistan with McChrystal. Over the weeks that followed he was privy to everything the General and his team did and saw, including unguarded opinions of the President, of General Petraeus, of Hamid Karzai. 'The Runaway General' piece in Rolling Stone that caused a sensation around the world and led directly to McChrystal's dismissal. In the tradition of CATCH-22, PRIMARY COLORS or APOCALYPSE NOW, this landmark book reveals the craziness behind the scenes at the highest level. But it's all true. A landmark piece of reporting.
What a clusterfuck.
Hastings impressed me with the way he pulled the narrative together in the end. It’s not the story of McChrystal, or his team, or Hastings himself— it’s the assembly line of interchangeable generals in the unwinnable war. One of the most powerful parts is one of its simplest: two pages, back to back, with each side’s blunt opinions of the other. No spin, no politicking.
Just a clusterfuck. And it’s ours. We made it. With no way to get out.
(With regards to the movie, the one Netflix made falls short of the book. Armando Iannucci might be the only one who could do it a profane sort of justice. Truth is stranger than fiction; I’m not sure satire is possible when reality descends into farce.)
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