Comment by James μολὼν λαβέ on June 20, 2013 at 1:22am

As the International Business Times notes, "some of the details surrounding the story [of Hastings' death] read like a poorly-written political thriller."

As IBT notes, Hastings wrote in his book, "The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan," that he received a death threat from a former McChrystal staff member.

"We'll hunt you down and kill you if we don't like what you write," the staffer threatened, according to Hastings, who calmly responded: "Well, I get death threats like that about once a year, so no worries."

Hastings went on to say: "I wasn't disturbed by the claim. Whenever I'd been reporting around groups of dudes whose job it was to kill people, one of them would usually mention that they were going to kill me."

Comment by James μολὼν λαβέ on June 20, 2013 at 1:27am

Cars are arguably one of the softest targets when it comes to assassinations and kidnappings. Here’s an extract from the CIA Assassin’s Manual:

"For secret assassination, either simple or chase, the contrived accident is the most effective technique. When successfully executed, it causes little excitement and is only casually investigated.”

Car bombs and kidnappings are no longer the stuff of James Bond, Transformers, or Batman movies. They are a very real part of today’s world. Such incidents take place every day in one or another part of the globe. Only, today the targets are no longer diplomatic or military, but high powered businessmen, captains of industry, bankers, and even entertainers.

Highly Trained

Today’s assassination attempts are not amateurish. Terrorists and killers are highly trained (many are not though) and have access to an awesome arsenal of weapons and explosives. And the attacks are well planned and coordinated.

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