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

lose my objectivity. I’d e-mailed Eric back: If I start getting Stockholm syndrome, I’m sure we can knock it out of me. I could already start to feel the pull. I was starting to like them, and they seemed to like me. They were cool. They had a reckless, who-gives-a-fuck attitude. I was getting inside the bubble—an imaginary barrier that popped up around the inner sanctums of the most powerful institutions to keep reality at bay. I’d seen the bubble in White Houses, on the campaign trail, inside embassies, at the highest levels of large corporations.The bubble had a reality-distorting effect on those inside it, while perversely convincing those within the bubble that their view of reality was the absolute truth. (“Establishment reporters undoubtedly know a lot of things I don’t,” legendary outsider journalist I. F. Stone once observed. “But a lot of what they know isn’t true.”) The bubble compensated for its false impressions by giving bubble dwellers feelings of prestige from their proximity to power. The bubble was incredibly seductive, the ultimate expression of insiderness. If I succumbed to the logic of the bubble, I could lose the desire to write with a critical eye.
    After dinner, the gang headed to Kitty O’Shea’s Irish pub, right around the corner from the hotel. Kitty O’Shea’s was a touristy-looking bar, not exactly the hippest spot in Paris.
    Drinking began in earnest.
    Around ten thirty P.M. , I ran into Duncan outside. He hung up his cell phone. The McChrystals, the Flynns, and the rest were on their way over, he told me. They’d finished up the anniversary dinner.
    By midnight, the team was totally shit-faced.
    Except for me.
    “Why aren’t you drinking?” Jake asked me. It was the third time he’d asked me that. Each time, he tried to push a beer on me while I was talking to him and McChrystal.
    “I haven’t really drank in ten years,” I said. “Last time I got drunk, I ended up in a county jail with only boxers on, a navy blue blazer, a pair of Nike sneakers, and a restraining order against me. I was in there for, like, four days. My father said: A good scare is worth more than good advice. So I stopped drinking.”
    “Shit. That stopped you?” Jake said. “That’s where we started!”
    Jake and McChrystal and I laughed. There was a bit of the awkward moment. I had overshared.
    Casey broke the silence. He pulled McChrystal aside. He started to drunkenly apologize for fucking up the index cards—he was sorry he didn’t get the right font size.
    The team took over half the bar. They locked arms in a big circle and started giving toasts. They toasted to Afghanistan. They toasted to one another. They toasted to Big Stan. They toasted to
Rolling Stone
. They started singing songs.
    “On the cover of the
Rolling Stone
,” Flynn and his brother Charlie belted out, singing the lyrics to the hit song performed by Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show. “On the COOOOVER of the
Rolling Stone
!”
    In honor of Khosh, they started to do an Afghan wedding dance. The Flynns and C. added their Irish heritage to it. The bar quieted as C. started singing an old Irish ballad. I couldn’t make out the words; it just sounded sad. Lost love, ghosts, and famine.
    “ERRRRRyyyyyEEEEoooooHHH…” C. howled.
    The Flynns made up their own song. The words were unintelligible, but the chorus was clear: “AFGHANISTAN!” they yelled. “AFGHANISTAN!”
    I was standing outside the circle.
    Dave came up to me. “You’re not going to fuck us, are you?”
    I answered what I always answer: “I’m going to write a story; some of the stuff you’ll like, some of the stuff you probably won’t like.”
    Jake came up to me. “We’ll hunt you down and kill you if we don’t like what you write,” he said. “C. will hunt you down and kill you.”
    I looked at Jake. He had what I’d heard people in the military call retired colonel syndrome. A certain inferiority complex and bitterness about not rising