Hastings likely murdered for what he knew and wrote about
Andrew W. Griffin Red Dirt Report, editor
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| Al Seib / Los Angeles Times |
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The burned-out hulk of Michael Hastings' Mercedes after it hit a tree early Tuesday.
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OKLAHOMA CITY – In an violent explosion more conducive to a fire-prone ’75 Ford Pinto, rather than a newer model Mercedes, investigative reporter Michael Hastings, 33, is being mourned following his mysterious death in a fiery crash in Los Angeles, California, which we noted here yesterday.
But people are beginning to ask a lot of questions about the circumstances leading up to Hastings’ untimely death. After all, he brought down Gen. Stanley McChrystal via his crack reporting skills. Hastings was warned by McChrystal staffers that any bad information reported about the general would be met with his death. All in jest, right?
Hastings, just a couple of weeks ago, was reporting on the Democrats’ love of spying on Americans. And then we learn, via The Telegraph, out of Britain, that Hastings contacted WikiLeaks right before his death.
Yeah, about that death. We learn that there were no skid marks leading up to the tree Hastings allegedly ran into. The engine is down the road. And the blazing fire that followed the impact of the tree was so hot and intense that the body of the driver was utterly incinerated, according to the Los Angeles Coroner’s office.
And that tree? If he hit it as hard and as fast as they claim, that tree would likely not be still standing. We suspect that it was a car bomb, not unlike the spook-orchestrated, 1976 car bombing of Chilean diplomat and economist Orlando Letelier on a Washington D.C. street.
The message here is that reporters need to keep their heads down and do as they are told. Hastings’ mistake, they would say, was that he didn’t go along with the program. You don’t just take down a US general – a key figure in the battle against the “War on Terror” – and not face some consequences. Hastings knew government spooks were following him. He got death threats fairly regularly. Yet he soldiered on, refusing to give in to the thugs. He had some serious dirt, we are told, and was looking to expose it.
Will Hastings’ notes make their way to Buzzfeed or Rolling Stone? Or will they disappear as they tend to in the wake of assassinations such as this? We know Hastings fearlessly wrote blistering articles against the powerful, including President Obama and his drone policy.
Was Michael Hastings murdered for what he reported and what he knew? The signs, as the old Magic 8-Ball might say, point to yes.
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