The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan

'An impressive feat of journalism by a Washington outsider who seemed to know more about what was going on in Washington than most insiders did' New York Times

General Stanley McChrystal, innovative commander of international and US forces in Afghanistan, was living large. During a spring 2010 trip across Europe he was accompanied by journalist Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone, who looked on as McChrystal and his staff partied and openly bashed the Obama administration. Hasting's published piece aroused a political firestorm: McChrystal was unceremoniously fired.

The Operators gives us a shocking behind-the-scenes portrait of Allied military commanders, their high-stakes manoeuvres and bureaucratic in-fighting. Hastings takes us on patrol missions in the Afghan hinterlands and to hotel bars where spies and expensive hookers participate in nation-building gone awry, revealing a hellish complexity and, he fears, an unwinnable war.

Phoenix
Non-Fiction/Current Affairs