tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. tonight, a conversation with the journalist whose work in "rolling stone" led to the ouster of the top general in afghanistan. he is out now with an explosive new look at american involvement in afghanistan. the text is called "the operators." it is built on time he spent with stanley mcchrystal and interviews and trips to the site of what has now become america's longest war. we are glad you have joined us. the conversation with mike wallace -- with michael hastings, coming up right now. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like

you. thank you. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- tavis: michael hastings is a noted journalist who serves as a contributing editor at "rolling stone." his interview with stanley mcchrystal led to the firing of america's top man in afghanistan in 2010. his book is based on that experience and more reporting about america's longest war. it is called "the operators -- the world and terrifying inside story of the american war in afghanistan." michael joins us tonight from new york. >> it is an honor to be here. a huge fan of your work. tavis: glad to have you on. let me start with the cover of

the book. there has been some controversy about this photo. i want to leave his picture up a second so you see. some general with all kinds of bars and colors, with a gun in his left hand, a drink in his right hand. i know you are not in charge of the cover of the book. what do you make ofth the book company came up with and the controversy it has created? >> i think it is a great cover. i think in publishing these days, you are already controversial when you have not opened the first page of the book. you are doing a kick yourself. on a serious matter, the issue with the cover was that there were some people who said it was based on a picture of david petraeus, and that offended a number of people who around general petraeus. that is where the controversy came from. that being said, i think there is something metaphorical about

a cover. as you said in the introduction, a lot of people in the pentagon have been intoxicated by this forever war, intoxicated by 10 years of fighting. i want 10 years more. there is something metaphorical and powerful about that cover. tavis: what was it about the article that did not get to what you thought needed to be addressed, which caused you to want to write the text decks >> i knew almost immediately, i think on the second day with general mcchrystal and his staff, that these were people i wanted to write a book about. that was clear from the beginning. the original article was 5000 words and this is 120,000. the article in many ways was about the runaway general, and this is about the runaway military. i wanted to flush out the characters around the staff, the characters in the white house,

obama and his closest advisers. by doing that, i give a sense of the people, 10 years into this war, who ended up running this. it was this unique moment in history, where you have very neat people in charge of the war in afghanistan. general mcchrystal and his crew come from a special forces back ground. it is almost unprecedented to have someone with an extensive special forces background in charge of a large battlefield command. what does that tell us about our country? to put it bluntly, the most successful assassin and man hunter, as they call it, is in charge of a war. tavis: were you surprised at the response to the article? it is silly to ask whether or not you thought the president should fire him. that is not your job. you are a reporter and you tell the facts. were you surprised at the response? >> i was blown away.

i. detail this in the book. my reaction to the experience -- i was in hand a car with another and bed with the military -- embed with the military. i was over in afghanistan. i never expected general mcchrystal to be fired. one of the theses of the article was that he was untouchable, that he had too much power and that president obama would never confront him, or was unable to stand up to him. as someone who has covered iraq and afghanistan for years now, often you write powerful things, or in your journalist minder tell yourself it is powerful, and it is a drop in the bucket. i had the first interview with an iraqi death squad in 2006. he totally ignored. i think anytime you can get one headline, much less a week of headlines, from a story, clearly -- in my case, "rolling

stone" and the editors hit on something powerful. tavis: have you figured out why they gave you so much excess? considering the access act, the article, and the book, any thoughts on why they gave you some much access? >> general mcchrystal wanted to be on the cover of "rolling stone puzzle that is the simplest and most straightforward answer. why would a general want to be on the cover of "rolling stone"? you have to look at how successful general petraeus, one of general mcchrystal's friends and rivals, has been and building a media fan base. general petraeus was so successful at having journalists fall in love with him that he was able to use that power to go around the normal chain of command. he has what i call the phenomenon of petraeus and the. every other general is trying to

be petraeus. general petraeus had never been in "rolling stone puzzle why not give that a goat? the danger for general mcchrystal, which i did not realize, is that general mcchrystal had been warned by the white house not to do any media after he was in trouble for a "60 minutes" interview, and criticizing the vice president publicly a number of months ago. there was a risk of doing any media at the time. they were pushing the envelope. tavis: i wonder whether you think general mcchrystal -- i do not want to us whether he regrets what happened. i suspect he probably does. to your mind, is there anything he said to you that he now regrets? >> i am not sure. it is interesting. since he left that job, or was asked to leave, or was fired, he has done well. he is at yale.

he is on a speaking circuit where he get $60,000 a pop. he is on a number of boards of powerful companies. and he has been asked this question, and he has given joking answers. once he joked that "i would have fired myself several times if i s he is giving off the record interviews still where he criticizes the white house and says there is no trust between the white house and the pentagon. a few months ago, he said we are only halfway there in afghanistan, which is a direct slap in the face to the white house. the white house has said over and over we are making progress and leang in 2014. you have l a general saying we e only halfway there. what does thatve say about genel mcchrystal? what i have always thought. he is like general macarthur or general tang. the quality that brought him to great heights will be his

undoing. tavis: it could be a slap in the face to the white house. it could also be loaded with truth, to the point you have made about the spin the white house is giving. who is right on afghanistan? how far along are we are not in this war? >> that is a great point. an interesting thing you hit on which was not remarked on at the time and was valid -- were general mcchrystal's criticism is valid? to a certain point, they were. one of general mcchrystal's great flaws -- it makes him a great interview, but it is difficult to stay at that level. he does have the capacity to tell it like it is. in a famous example, he called marja, a small village in southern afghanistan, a bleeding ulcer. and he was talking about his own operation. he told the vice president he thought his plan sucked.

he said that publicly. i disagree with him on that. but clearly he is not someone who mince words. that is the kind of guy you are going to get. he is special forces. he is a risk taker. he has not made a career of toeing the line. if you look at some of the more troubling episodes of his career, he clearly was not playing by the rules. tavis: if this book is about anything, it is, to my mind, a powerful polemic on the failure of the u.s. counterinsurgency in afghanistan to date. what the article did was ultimately get mcchrystal fired and this conversation about him. but let us talk about what is happening or not inside of afghanistan, given u.s. counter- terrorism. >> behind the scenes -- the public, when the article came out, there was talk of general mcchrystal. but behind the scenes, the

article and a book or read as a direct assault on the idea of counterinsurgency. and i would agree. i think it is a failure. i cannot say what a failure it has been. that has been acknowledged in the most recent defense budget. counterinsurgency is ranked number 9. you go down the list. the big think tanks in washington and made all kinds of money off of these counterinsurgency theories are all backing away now. in a sense, the true impact of what i hope in this book, as well as the story, he is to get people really thinking about counterinsurgency, and to change the narrative. for a while, it was the idea of the day. they called it coindinistas, like sandinista, because everyone was caught up in the fever. tavis: what you want us to

change it to? >> the tragedy is we should have started leaving and negotiating a couple of years ago, in 2009, and we did not do that. the narrative is now going to change to what vice president biden wanted to do originally, which is have a small number of u.s. troops doing training of the afghan army so they can do these limited in counter- terrorism operations, rather than have 150,000 troops occupied the country. as someone who has seen what has been over the past six years -- if i do one more interview with a mother who has lost a son, or a father who has lost a son, or an afghan or an iraqi who has lost a brother in a bombing -- i don't know. it breaks my heart to even think about it. the fact that the president is saying the tide of war is receding and we are moving toward more limited counter

terrorist reggies, to me, is a victory of common sense. tavis: do you think the average american understands the huge amount of afghan life that has been lost in these 10 years? if they did understand, do you think they would care? >> no. i think it is difficult to empathize with your neighbor, let alone someone of a different skin color 8,000 miles away. the afghans -- is this funny thing. on the one hand, they are supposed to be our ally. on the other, they are demonized regularly in terms of the television. fair enough -- of the taliban. fair enough. i think it is very difficult to make people care about the natives in another country. call it like it is. counterinsurgency is making a kids behave the way we want them

to. -- making nativist behave the way we want them to. my job as a writer is to engage the american public in these topics. some of my critics have said there is not enough afghanistan in your book. ironically, the first half takes place in europe. the main characters are american. that is intentional. i am trying to engage people who may otherwise not want to pick up a book about afghanistan. but if it is a rock and roll book with boos and wild times and you slip into a tragedy and horror, you hope it gets through. tavis: do you think maybe americans have afghanistan fatigue right now, and with all respect to your work, it is a conversation of domestic troubles right now, and you cannot get traction? >> what has been amazing is the critical reception of the book,

especially during this crazy new cycle. this is the key. it is very telling that ron paul has gotten so much traction on his foreign-policy issue. that is where it is tied together. the fact that we are spending $120 million a year in afghanistan -- i went to a meeting of conservatives recently. i cannot go into detail about where i was or who i was with. i listed the statistics. $120 billion a year for the war. $20 billion a year for air- conditioning in iraq and afghanistan. we are spending $30 a pop every time a soldier goes into the mess hall, every time of day. $600,000 for a kilometer of road to be built. we are building mosques with taxpayer dollars along the afghanistan-pakistan border. and yet we are closing -- it is the classic john kerry line from

2004. we are closing post offices and spending $120 billion in afghanistan. when you lay it out like that, people say that is total lunacy. tavis: what does that say about our priorities? i hear your point loud and clear. what does it say about u.s. priorities? and if that issue makes much sense to you, me, and others to hear it, why is ron paul not getting traction when he makes that case? >> i think compared to the attraction he got in 2008 reverses now, there has been a significant bomb. if you look -significant- bumb. president -- there has been a significant hit a bump. president obama was the anti-war candidate. if he said he would triple the troops in afghanistan and iran on that, people would have been

very unhappy. that would have been raising a lot of questions. in the alternate universe where john mccain gets into office and tripled the size of the war, the liberals would have been on the streets, protesting. because it was obama, they did not do that. i think it is a challenge to get people to focus. when you can make the economic argument, it gets traction. but on the flip side of that, the pentagon -- this came out of our reporting -- 52% of our federal dollars go to the pentagon. it is the largest employer in the united states, 3.3 million people. there is so much momentum to these wars. it is hard to dial it back. in national security state is so expensive. getting it under control is a real challenge. tavis: have there been conversations that support the

current defense secretary, mr. panetta, that the defense department needs to be cut and will be cut? do you believe those statements? >> you i believe those statements? with the pentagon, the famous book is "the pentagon papers." it is a book of lies about the pentagon lying. i am always suspicious. one of the pentagon spokespeople -- you know he is telling the truth, because that is when he starts to sweat. i believe that are trying to get the pentagon spending under control. i believe if the right truly believe in fiscal responsibility, the pentagon is the golden example of fiscal irresponsibility. it is also one of the largest corporate welfare states. i think the cuts that have been called for now are not actually cuts. they are cuts against future

spending. they are just trying to stop the increase of spending. they have said that are going to try to get half a billion more off. the question is -- i think president obama -- is he going to spend the political capital to do this? i do not know. it is up in the air. if he is forced to cut the budget, i think his base will want to see more cuts to the pentagon than social security or medicare. that will keep the pressure on for him to do that. tavis: to have raised president obama a couple of times -- to my mind, there are at least two different barack obamas in this campaign. i am not sure how the republican committee is going to position him. on the one hand, you have the barack obama who has sent more troops into afghanistan. if he had run on that, he might not have one. since you raised the pakistan war, he has dropped more drones

in pakistan than george bush. he has increased the use of predator grown significantly, often resulting in the innocent killing of women and children. that is one barack obama. on the other hand, the san barack obama did take out osama bin laden. his strategy for gaddafi in libya was successful, if you define success as getting rid of marjah gaddafi. our maliki -- al maliki is gone. does he get credit? how do republicans play this? it is a mixed bag. >> in afghanistan, one of the key underreported narrative's was that you had this young, inexperienced commander in chief come into office. he gave the pentagon 20,000 troops in 2009. a few months later, they rolled him and asked him for three times that amount. he did not see it coming.

he was taken off guard. the pentagon waged a vicious media campaign to box him in a corner and force him to escalate. it is comparable to what happened to john f. kennedy with the bay of pigs. he had this idea that everyone knew was a horrible idea, but it had the momentum from the previous administration. i think the president -- i do not mean to sound condescending. i think he has learned from the experience with the pentagon. if you look at his decision once he started -- once he stopped listening to the pentagon, he has gotten out of iraq. the pentagon did not want to leave. in libya, a successful operation -- as these things go, successful but -- successful. he overruled secretary gates on libya. we are talking about

conventional foreign-policy media. when the president goes with his gut, he has been successful. i think afghanistan will be more difficult to box and into a corner on. i think iran is where the right is going to try to push the president into war, or try to make him look bad for not starting a war. i think that is the thing to watch in terms of foreign policy. it is iran. i do not see support to escalate the war in afghanistan. you could see something in iran quickly. tavis: let me read a quote from your book, page 79. helman represents the warped logic of the war. we are there because we are there, and because we are there, we are there some more. it is the momentum. the military has a fetish for completion. it is against every marshall instinct to retreat, to leave

land where blood has been spilled, even when that land have little strategic significance. leaving is traumatic. what does completion mean at this point? is this war winnable? >> no. winning is not something anybody really discusses. the game -- sadly, i think it is a game -- is to create a condition where generals like general petraeus, who is out of the cia, and general allen, can come back and say we won. the game is a spin campaign. afghanistan -- if we leave or stay, afghanistan is still going to be violent for years to come. i think there has to be a significant diplomatic push. finally, we are getting there. the tragedy is it took hundreds of more american lives.

for me, winning is convincing everyone that we won. that, to me, is a fairly sad state of affairs. tavis: in 30 seconds, reminding people about your new book -- let me ask what it means that this story has gotten this kind of attraction in a place like " rolling stone"? there is a piece with julian assange on the new cover. what does it mean that "rolling stone" is the place stories are being broken? work on goldman sachs was ground breaking. dickenson on the environment. our occupy wall street coverage has been incredible. i could not have gotten this story published almost anywhere else but "rolling stone." that is the truth. if a public it somewhere else, they would have very good stuff, the material people really needed to read.

it is a testimony to jann wenner, the publisher, and my editors, to take this risk. when the flak comes, and invariably it does when you write about powerful institutions, they do not throw me in front of the bus. tavis: they did not cover this up. thankfully, there is more in the book "the operators." it is written by michael hastings. good to have you on the program. thanks for your time. >> honored to be here. tavis: that is our show for tonight. see you next week. as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.or.g tavis: join me next time for a conversation with michael mann on his new series, "luck."

>> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >>