Free The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan by Michael Hastings Page A

said diplomatically.
    “It’s not fucking fine,” Dave said. The move, Dave explained, went against all fairness. It showed that these guys in Paris didn’t get it—they were completely disconnected from the war. The point of having Khosh at the dinner was to show that the Afghans were in the fight, that they weren’t just worthless shitbags who had to be prodded along by Americans and Europeans. The Afghans were part of the team, too. Khosh’spresence was meant to provide a “good visual” for the French government, as Dave put it, representing the importance of actually getting the people who live in the country you’re fighting in to fight for you. Stealing Khosh’s seat at the last minute undercut the message the team wanted to send.
    There was an eagerness to tell McChrystal about it. He’d set the attaché straight.
    “That guy is going to get fucking chewed out. I can’t wait to see that happen at the airport. His fucking career is over,” Dave said. Casey agreed.
    C. stared at me. He had intense and hungry eyes, like a coyote on the hunt for a puppy. He had heard I was doing a profile of McChrystal. Unprompted, he decided to give me his input on him. The general, he said, was a living legend in the Special Operations community, a giant leap above the office-bound dipshits who usually had four stars on their shoulders. McChrystal had what C. considered to be the most important attribute for a leader: respect from men like himself.
    “The fucking lads love Stan McChrystal,” he told me. “You’d be out in Somewhere, Iraq, and someone would take a knee beside you, and a corporal would be like, ‘Who the fuck is that?’ And it’s fucking Stan McChrystal.”
    McChrystal and the other top staff officers came into the bar. It was McChrystal’s thirty-third wedding anniversary. What had originally been planned as a dinner for McChrystal and his wife had now ballooned to include part of his senior staff going out for dinner with the two of them. The younger members of the staff would eat separately at another restaurant. They invited me to join them.
    We left the hotel and walked a few blocks. We peeled off at an overpriced tourist restaurant and headed up to the second floor. We ate. Wine was served. I didn’t drink.
    Midway through the dinner, Dave turned to me.
    “Mike, you have to fucking come to Berlin with us, man,” he told me. Berlin was the next stop on the NATO tour.
    “Ah, shit, I’d love to, but I can’t. I have to be back in DC. I’m supposed to interview Holbrooke.”
    “You can fucking interview him anytime, that’s fucking easy. He loves publicity. Come on. Come to Berlin.” Dave looked to Duncan. “Duncan?”
    Duncan smiled.
    “This is beginning to sound like fucking
Almost Famous
,” I said. “I’m getting kidnapped.”
    The movie, directed by Cameron Crowe, was loosely based on his experience as a
Rolling Stone
reporter. His assignment was to write a story about a rock band. His one-day story turned into a lengthy road trip on tour with the band. (“Rock stars have kidnapped my son!” his mother cried.) Crowe befriended the band members, then wrote an extremely revealing story. (“Oh, the enemy. A rock writer,” one band member warned in the film.) The band got pissed off about what he’d written, and denied everything that happened. (“I am a golden god.”) At the end of the movie, the lead guitarist had an epiphany. He saw the error of his ways and showed up at the reporter’s doorstep, apologetic, and believing that the truth should ultimately prevail. Credits rolled. I’d enjoyed the movie, but my experience as a reporter had led me to believe that there wasn’t always a happy ending if you wrote about people with brutal honesty.
    “You have to fucking come, man,” Dave said.
    I didn’t want to stay with them. My editor, Eric Bates, had warned me about falling into the access trap. By becoming so indebted to them for the access they’d given me, I’d