Michael Hastings

Reporter and war correspondent Michael Hastings is best known for his Rolling Stone article about Gen. Stanley McChrystal, in which he quoted McChrystal criticizing the Obama White House and mocking certain members of the Administration. Gen. McChrystal retired shortly afterward. Hastings died on Tuesday and you can hear his conversation with Leonard Lopate below. 

Michael Hastings, the reporter who wrote a Rolling Stone article that resulted in General Stanley McChrystal McChrystal being fired, discusses the military leaders behind America’s war in Afghanistan. In The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan, Hastings weighs in on the merits and failings of generals and the counterinsurgency experts, and exposes the complexity of a war he fears is unwinnable.

Writing for Rolling Stone, Michael Hastings says that the Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers to "manipulate visiting senators into providing more funding for the war." The senators knew that they were going to be spun, says Hastings, but the question is to what degree this was appropriate or legal. This group was under the command of Lt. Gen. William Caldwell in Afghanistan; when soldiers spoke out against the order, they were ignored.

Michael Hastings, Newsweek’s Baghdad correspondent, explains how covering the war in Iraq came at a huge personal cost. He writes about love and loss in wartime in his new memoir, I Lost My Love in Baghdad.