Michael Hastings Quotes

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.

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

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

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

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

The humanitarian argument is so selective I find it difficult to swallow. It's not even so much about the choice as to where we should get involved and where we shouldn't.

Whether or not Afghanistan would be a peaceful nation-state had we not gone into Iraq I doubt. Afghanistan is going to be Afghanistan, no matter how hard we try to make it something else.

After a decade of war you have this Pentagon-military apparatus run amok using resources that they shouldn't be to try to manipulate U.S. public opinion.

Look at the violence in Pakistan and the presence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan: the more troops we put in the more violent Pakistan becomes.

The fact that our largest presence in the world is our massive military is going to dictate how we engage with the world.

The State Department is essentially... I was going to use the word useless. But I don't know if that's correct.

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 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.

During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the military conducted only a handful of drone missions.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Oh, don't let him pull that 'Pearl Harbor I'm going off to war' stuff on you.

You basically have to be willing to devote your life to journalism if you want to break in. Treat it like it's medical school or law school.