ABSTRACT
Michael Hastings, a journalist who had covered the Iraq war for Newsweek magazine, and then became a contributing editor for Rolling Stone , also was assigned to write about the counterinsurgency and the man behind it. Th e very month Kaplan’s article appeared, Hastings was with McChrystal and his senior aides at bases and towns in Afghanistan, as well as in Paris, where the general went to speak to NATO allies and at a military academy. His article, “Th e Runaway General,” also features lots of dialogue and details-the
kind of material a reporter can get only with good and sustained access to his subject. Hastings is there when McChrystal’s senior aides have had a bit too much to drink. He’s there when the general and his aides belittle the views of people with misgivings about counterinsurgency, including President Obama, Vice President Biden, and the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan. He’s there when McChrystal faces some tough questioning from his own troops who were beginning to doubt the strategy. And Hastings reported what he saw and heard.
