84 Quotes by Michael Hastings

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.

I’m talking to people all of the time. So it hasn’t really had a big impact. Access is never my main concern anyway. If you keep digging and making phone calls you can get stories and not have to rely on the good graces of the Pentagon spokesperson. I am not in his good graces.

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.

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.

Inside the White House there were always extreme amounts of doubt about whether they should be escalating in Afghanistan. In fact, most of the president’s advisers said, “This is probably not going to work.” A lot of people in the military said, “This is probably not going to work.”

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.

I grew up reading Holocaust literature at the beach, Gulag literature on winter holidays, Vietnam memoirs on spring break.

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.

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.