It Is a Sad Reflection on Government’s Ability to Get Away with Killing People — that Virtually No One in the Public or the Media Is Demanding Answers — about Investigative Reporter Michael Hastings So-Called Car Crash

© 2013 Peter Free

 

24 July 2013

 

 

It does not get more suspicious than this, but few people care

 

Michael Hastings — the investigative reporter whose behind the scenes Rolling Stone story brought down US Army General Stanley McChrystal — died in a fiery car crash on a straight road in Los Angeles on 18 June, this year:

 

 

Hastings, 33, “was driving south on Highland Avenue when he apparently lost control of the . . . 2013 Mercedes Benz CLK250 near Melrose Avenue and crashed into palm trees in the median about 4:20 a.m. Tuesday (June 18). The car's engine reportedly ended up about 200 feet away from the impact site.”

 

An eyewitness at the scene, Jose, employed at nearby business ALSCO Inc said, the car was travelling very fast and he heard a couple explosions shortly before the car crashed.

 

In fact, the explosion was so intense that it took the LA County assistant corner, Ed Winter, two days to identify the burned-beyond recognition body of Hastings.

 

Some reports said there was a curve in the road, also not true; in fact it’s straight freeway-to-freeway. Also, there was no damage to the median curb, only fire discoloration.

 

But the most significant missing evidence was the absence of any skid marks—even though the car made a 60-degree turn into a palm tree.

 

© 2013 Kimberly Dvorak, Details of Reporter Hastings’ Death Remain Elusive, San Diego 6 (08 July 2013) (paragraph split)

 

 

My ex-cop sense says that the Los Angeles Police Department’s “no foul play” explanation is bogus

 

Despite Hollywood representations, cars do not miraculously explode.

 

Absent suicide, cars do not perpendicularly and skidlessly veer off the road.

 

Reporter Kimberly Dvorak introduces the possibility that Hastings’ drive-by-wire Mercedes had been hacked, so as to cause it to crash.  She points to a 2010 article by Gordon Duff explaining the technique and its convenient utility in getting rid of folks who offend the powers that be:

 

 

Truth is, we live in a world where it is cheaper sometimes to use simple thuggery, than to go to the bother of rigging a Boeing 767 or running a car into a concrete abutment.

 

When a member of congress is bribed to support a war, vote for a special tax break for a gangster or to submit to some Israeli abuse, did someone send him a photo of his children playing in a school yard or was his brothers wife raped and beaten recently?

 

This is how the game is played.

 

Between 1995 and 2005, 50 scientists that we know of, all WMD specialists, germ warfare, bio weapons, chemical warfare, died under circumstances, some as plain as an unexpected heart attack in an otherwise healthy young adult to the inevitable “Boston Brakes” crash.

 

Gordon Duff, Boston Brakes, No Skidmarks in the Sky, Veterans Today (25 July 2010) (paragraph split)

 

Duff lists the fifty expired WMD (weapons of mass destruction) scientists and their purported causes of death:

 

 

If you wondered what intelligence services do, the answer is simple, they murder people.  If you wonder who they work for, the answer is simple also, crooked arms dealers, drug cartels and power mad politicians.

 

How many people will be murdered, how many kids threatened, how many poisonings, how much in bribes before America agrees to attack Iran?

 

How many billions are being paid to keep America in Afghanistan, supporting Karzai and immune to knowledge of the $65 billion dollar a year drug trade?

 

Gordon Duff, Boston Brakes, No Skidmarks in the Sky, Veterans Today (25 July 2010) (paragraph split)

 

 

Think I’m nuts? — Consider this

 

If you were a person accustomed to (a) great influence and (b) with direct or indirect access to the means of another person’s destruction, would you put up with that (alleged) pipsqueak’s inconvenient harassment?

 

Pretend that you are a novelist interested in Michael Hastings’ death.

 

Who, among many people, would have had a widely understandable motive for getting rid of him?

 

Novelist’s most obvious answer — General McChrystal or one of his loyal subordinates.  Or anyone else who got wind of the fact that Hastings might be working on an exposé of him or her.

 

Note

In this vein of inquiry, reporter Kimberly Dvorak’s account explains what Hastings was working on and his suspicion that the FBI was after him.

 

 

Without pointing fingers, let’s reason this out as a representative example of what goes on

 

Rather than unfairly besmirch General McChrystal with the following allegory, let’s rename him General X.

 

Reporter Hastings inveigles his way into General X’s military crew by pretending to be an above board, straight shooter, with no axe to grind.  Then, to X’s surprise, he turns around and writes an article that gets X relieved of his military command.

 

General X worked all his life to attain a position of great influence.  He resents the fact that this young (and apparently conniving) twerp penetrated his unit’s cohesion to his personal detriment.

 

General X also happens to be a singularly admired specialist in Special (military) Operations.  X, or a loyal subordinate, decides that payback’s a worthy bitch.

 

 

A comment on the psychic ties that bind — I could be just like the allegorical General X

 

My allegory depends on the humility engendered by self-knowledge.

 

For example, I’m perfectly capable of letting power go to my head.  I am also not the kind of person who lets other people trample all over me without just cause.  Last, I am loyal to my commanders.

 

Throw in military combat unit cohesiveness — and a belief in direct action — and you have a simple recipe for competently executed revenge.  (Pun intended.)  Whether taken directly by X, or by someone who treasures the man.

 

 

Now imagine an allegory in which powerful person X has not yet been exposed by Michael Hastings

 

Would not that person’s motive for eliminating Hastings be even more likely to be acted upon?

 

Wouldn’t you rather eliminate a problem before it bites you, rather than after you have lost a sizeable chunk of everything?

 

 

The moral? — The circumstances of Michael Hastings’ death are intensely suspicious

 

But it is unlikely that LAPD is going to “discover” — much less reveal — anything useful.  Those cops have families, too.  The pendulum’s guillotine almost always swings against the opponents of established power.

 

That is why courageous Michael Hastings and ilk are so valuable.  And why I am sad that there has not been more outrage over his too politically convenient passing.

 

Even though I am potentially exactly like the allegorical General X, I think that humanity must be determined catch me, when I indulge moral baseness.