Michael Hastings Dies at 33; Fearless Journalist Challenged Power and Exposed Myths of Afghan War
Michael Hastings: If WMDs were the big lie of the Iraq War, the safe haven myth is the big lie of the Afghan War. And what I mean by thatand this was true in Iraq, as wellbut 99 percent of the people, maybe even higher, honestly, the people we're fighting, whether it was Sunni insurgents in Iraq or Shiite militias in Iraq or in Afghanistan, the Taliban never actually posed a threat to the United States homeland. So the question one has to ask oneself is that if everything we're doing and everyone we're fighting is not actually a threat to the United Statescertainly not a direct threat, by any means, by any meansthen why are we expending so many resources, $120 billion a year, you know, with all the lives lost, to do it? And that'sand again, this is the big lie of counterinsurgency, which I know we've discussed on your show. To justify this tremendous outlay of resources, they have to say, "Oh, no, we're killing terrorists." But everybody knows that that's not true.
Amy Goodman: At the time of that interview, Michael Hastings had just come out with his book, The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan.
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