Lyle had been serving as a marine officer in and around the Helmand province for about five months before Rolling Stone published “The Runaway General” (June 2010), the explosive profile of General Stanley McChrystal and his entourage. Michael Hasting’s account led to the general’s immediate ouster as NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) commander in Afghanistan, and in 2012—about a year before the journalist’s own mysterious death—Hastings published The Operators, his book-length version of the same story. War Machine is the darkly satirical rendition of that book, and Van and Lyle have much to say about the movie’s didactic critique of counterinsurgency and implied critique of empire.

Reading List

The Operators (2012), by Michael Hastings

“The Runaway General” (2010), by Michael Hastings

“Who Killed Michael Hastings?” (2013), by Benjamin Wallace

American Cipher: Bowe Bergdahl and the U.S. Tragedy in Afghanistan (2019), by Matt Farwell and Michael Ames

The Afghanistan Papers (2021), by Craig Whitlock

Human and Budgetary Costs of the U.S. War in Afghanistan (2022), Watson Institute

“Democracy Doesn’t Come in a Box” (2019), by Lyle Jeremy Rubin, et al. 

War Machine Trailer

Video teaser from the episode:

Song credit: “Dumpster Fire,” by The Great Heights Band, feat. Rauli V.

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