A Quote by Michael Hastings

When you go into a country like Libya where a large chunk of the population wants the old regime back you could end up with a protracted civil war. That we're now in a stalemate was both entirely predictable, and predicted. That we're now relying on drones is disturbing. How vital can a cause be if we're not willing to risk American lives to defend it, and instead use robots and remote control operators? It gets me back to the larger feeling about the intervention - there's just not a compelling reason for us to be involved.
The government of Libya announced the death of Moammar Gadhafi. This marks the end of a long and painful chapter for the people of Libya, who now have the opportunity to determine their own destiny in a new and democratic Libya. The Gadhafi regime ruled the Libyan people with an iron fist. The enormous potential of the Libyan people was held back and terror was used as a political weapon. The last major regime strongholds have fallen. The new government is consolidating the control over the country. And one of the world's longest-serving dictators is no more.
It's so hard to go to war at home. Go to war, go home, repeat. And that is the future of warfare. Forget about remote control drones, there's going to be remote control tanks.
I'm working on a script right about Civil War re-enactors who go back in time to the actual Civil War. It's kind of a big, crazy Back to the Future comedy. So, of course, it's the Civil War - I play the banjo. I was just having a conversation with one of the producers about some of the material and he was like, 'You know, we have to work in a scene where you play the banjo. And I was like I'll get behind that.
So about 80 years after the Constitution is ratified, the slaves are freed. Not so you'd really notice it of course; just kinda on paper. And that of course was at the end of the Civil War. Now there is another phrase I dearly love. That is a true oxymoron if I've ever heard one: "Civil War." Do you think anybody in this country could ever really have a civil war? "Say, pardon me?" (shoots gun) "I'm awfully sorry. Awfully sorry."
I mean, you can agree or disagree with Iraq or Afghanistan, but by the way, now the great campaigning cause out there is the absence of intervention in Syria. And then in Libya, it's partial intervention. And that doesn't really explain why some countries that have literally nothing to do with the interventions in the Middle East end up getting targeted.
It makes no sense for us to consider going back there and getting involved in what truly is a religious civil war. What real difference would it make on the ground? And secondly, is it in the best interests of the United States to do that? I would say that those questions are not being answered in a compelling way that would cause me to support that.
However, I think we have to go back to the American bogeyman - we have to understand that this is a country which currently allows American drones to fly over our skies and bomb our people on an almost weekly basis, this is a country that survives on American aid in the billions. Today's headline in the newspapers is about America stepping up arms supplies to Pakistan.
I’d like to fight everybody who wants to make war on people. I’d like to fight bullies, actually. I’d like to stand up to the bullies in this world. I was actually mugged once in London, and I was completely defenseless. They came at me with a… I was held at knifepoint. And I felt so angry that I let them do it and I think I’d like to go back and say ‘Look, it’s okay’, and if they tried to stab me, I could just say ‘You can stop that now’.
I think that right now, the global political crisis that we see all over the place has to do with virulent nostalgia. Everywhere, people are talking about taking us back to the good old days. Whether that's the "caliphate," or Britain before the EU, or "Make America Great Again." But, we can't go back and many people wouldn't want to go back even if we could.
I actually looked up in my journal trying to figure out some dates and, in January 1991, America is about to go back into its first sort of actual war since Vietnam, with the Gulf War. It just seemed unbelievable at the time that this country would do that - which is funny to think about now.
Music keeps you eternally young. It just does. What I love about it now is touring without the guilt. Now it's like nothing is being held back. You get to eat mashed potatoes with both hands instead of one. It's fantastic.
What bin Laden had hoped to achieve in Afghanistan in the post-9/11 period, which was to drag the United States into a protracted guerrilla war like the one he had fought against the Soviets, never happened. Instead, that protracted guerrilla war is now playing out in Iraq, in the heart of the Middle East.
I hardly ever go back to Florida. It's really hard to go back. I mean, I hated it so much. I didn't grow up in a great neighborhood, and it puts me back in that feeling of, "I want to get out immediately." That was kind of the push and what still pushes me, that I don't want to end up back there.
When I came back, after all those stories about Hitler and his snub, I came back to my native country, and I could not ride in the front of the bus. I had to go to the back door. I couldn't live where I wanted. Now what's the difference?
Let's go back to the beginning of the Obama administration, when Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama led NATO in toppling the government in Libya. They did it because they wanted to promote democracy. A number of Republicans supported them. Well, the result is, Libya is now a terrorist war zone run by jihadists.
In the old days, people used to risk their lives in India or in the Americas in order to bring back products which now seem to us to have been of comically little worth.
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