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

This account expands on Hastings’ explosive revelations for Rolling Stone magazine in which he accompanied General Stanley McChrystal and staff across Europe in 2010 to build additional allied assistance for the US-led war in Afghanistan. There, Hastings described the key characters of the Afghan leadership, and recorded unguarded opinions from McChrystal’s staff criticising ‘what they saw as a lack of leadership’ from the Obama administration. These reports saw McChrystal summoned to Washington where he was ultimately sacked. A book not without faults, it contains some salient lessons about how militaries and journalists interact and report on wars.