It has been forty three days since “we the people” through our government killed Michael Hastings AKA ?the fearless journalist whose reporting brought down the career of General Stanley McChrystal.”??
Allegedly.?I have to say that ?in order to make my editor content enough to publish.
At first I thought this was a bizarre tragic accident. I’ve lived in Los Angeles for more than fifteen years. I used to live in the neighborhood in which Michael Hastings was killed and have traveled that street thousands of times ?– ?a street that is pretty much straight as an arrow and for almost a decade hadn’t had a fatal car crash. Much less a single car crash fatality.
But then the well known site, The Truth About Cars, posted an?editorial??about how they have never seen a car do what Michael Hasting’s car did. The article points out that both the engine and transmission were ejected from?the car and the car was burning even more vividly than in a movie. This isn’t normal. Unless of course Mercedes is making a new “Gremlin/Pinto” class of car that we don’t about yet?
I’m here to state that I’ve seen dozens of cars hit walls and stuff at high speeds and the number of them that I have observed to eject their power-trains and immediately catch massive fire is, um, ah,?zero. Modern cars are very good at not catching fire in accidents. The Mercedes-Benz C-Class, which is an evolutionary design from a company known for sweating the safety details over and above the Euro NCAP requirements, should be leading the pack in the not-catching-on-fire category.
Think about that. Modern cars are very good at not bursting into flames. The fact that someone has to point this out in print should be what we find strange.
The now debunked idea that the engine from Michael Hasting’s car was thrown 100 feet behind the car shouldn’t take away from the fact that the ENGINE WAS THROWN ONE HUNDRED ?FEET FROM THE CAR! The transmission was tossed also but the 300 pound engine in this model of Mercedes is what amazes me. The engine is bolted to two bushings on the engine and one on the transmission (much thanks to Steve from Circle Star Mercedes in Van Nuys for the info) it is possible?for one of them to get ripped off, it is possible with enough force to even rip them both off. Steve doesn’t remember seeing a case where all three were torn from the vehicle, thrown 60 to 100 feet from the car and then the car exploding into flames. ?”Doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen ?with enough force (emphasis mine)? but these cars are built really really well,” he said.
Joseph ?Biggs, the soldier from Afghanistan and a friend of Michael Hastings, is now known for releasing the email where Michael talked about “a big story” and “needing to go off the grid.” Biggs claims that Elise Jordan, Michael’s wife, has said she will??take down whoever did this.” Mr. Biggs is the only source for this quote but he has been reputable so far. You may remember that Elise came forward shortly after the accident to make it clear that the story Michael was working on was not about Jill Kelley nor was he in LA to meet with Ms. Kelley’s ?lawyers. In the same Fox News interview Mr. Biggs made it clear that from his personal experience that Michael Hastings “drove like a grandma” so this behavior at this time of the morning would have been very strange for him.
There is also an online discussion as to how and why Michael Hasting’s body was cremated before being returned to the family. ?There are several reports that Michael’s wife and his father specifically asked for the body not to be cremated. But it was. This would prevent them from having their own independent autopsy performed. But this could also be a simple oversight and could have been done to make the transport of the remains easier. A simple accident. Like the exploding car.
But in spite of all this, I still thought that maybe Michael Hastings had just been out on the town, gotten drunk, and had bad luck. However, reports say Michael Hastings stopped drinking 10 years ago. ?But addicts sometimes relapse. Maybe it’s just bad luck that when he did relapse he crashed into a tree, the car explodes, he dies, and then gets accidentally cremated. Coincidence.
Just by chance one of the best writers in Los Angeles, Michael Krikorian, witnessed the aftermath of the Michael Hasting’s accident without even knowing who was involved. Krikorian’s girlfriend owns the restaurant the video below comes from:
Mr. Krikorian wrote about that evening on his blog “Krikorian Writes“. According to his account, one of the police officers on the scene said “I have never seen a car explode like that.”
The day after the crash, I found myself in the homicide squad room in South Los Angeles. The Hastings topic came up, and one of the detectives said, ?Stanley got him. Took his time, but got him. That wasn’t an accident.? (Meaning General Stanley McChrystal.) Michael Krikorian
But in spite of how odd the circumstances are, sometimes things just happen. It is most convenient for those in power but strange things do happen.
And then Richard Clarke gave an interview to?The HuffingtonPost. ?Now for those who don’t speak “wonk,” when Mr. Clarke says “it’s possible” he means “I think this is what happened.” ?When he says:
So if there were a cyber-attack on the car — and I’m not saying there was — I think whoever did it would probably get away with it.
What he probably means: “I’m pretty sure I know who killed Michael Hastings, ?but I’m not going to say anything because they would get away with it with me too.”
I also think when Clarke says that he believes the FBI wasn’t investigating Michael Hastings, he is implying that it was either the NSA or CIA pretending to be FBI so they can operate with impunity. So, no, the FBI wasn’t investigating Michael Hastings. But Mr. Clarke very clearly does not say that he did not think Michael Hastings wasn’t being investigated. ?The Pentagon has taken over the NSA, basically taken over the CIA, and God knows they have captured our economy through the “perpetual war” military-industrial-complex fiasco we find ourselves in. So Mr. Clarke can not only be forgiven for speaking in wonk and in code, but should be applauded for his bravery.
Michael Hastings died forty three days ago. We killed him. Allegedly.
Featured Image Source: The Rebel
Edited and published by TW
