Michael
Ware speaks on CNN about President Obama’s plan to
send more troops to Afghanistan.
(CNN / December 3, 2009)
ON THE MEDIA
Reporter
crashes into the ranks of punditsJames
Rainey
December 4, 2009
All this talk about the couple who broke into the
White House state dinner has been kind of
interesting. But, for my money, the most fascinating
gate-crasher this week on the Washington scene had to
be Michael Ware.
I’m talking about the CNN foreign correspondent who,
though invited, descended on the cable station’s
otherwise temperate panels on Afghanistan like some
feral creature from the vast, untamed Outback.
The unshaven, unruly and apparently unfettered Aussie
appeared on seemingly every one of the cable
station’s platforms in recent days, chiding President
Obama for being unspecific, mocking the idea of
anything like a clear “victory” in Afghanistan and
warning of atrocities if America throws in with
unsavory partners.
I’m told that news executives at the cable station
quietly cheered Ware’s star turn after Obama’s
Tuesday address on Afghanistan. I wouldn’t disagree
that Ware’s brand of shock and awe — arguing with one
colleague and returning repeatedly to the
contradictory realities of war — made for great TV.
But what worries a few of Ware’s overseas colleagues,
as one told me, is that the correspondent has morphed
“from a really good, passionate reporter into a
television personality.” In other words, Michael
Ware, war correspondent, risks his considerable
credibility the more he plays Michael Ware, political
pundit.
He’s not the first and won’t be the last journalist
on television who needs to be careful that his gifts
as a reporter aren’t overwhelmed by the
ratings-driven imperative to put on a better show.
I wrote not long ago about how a couple of other
correspondents with substantial time in Iraq and
Afghanistan — CBS’ Lara Logan and NBC’s Richard Engel
— also risked their more powerful role as impartial
witnesses by staking out positions on the Afghan war.
(Logan favored Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s buildup,
while Engel favored withdrawal.)
I tried but failed to reach Ware, who in previous
interviews has revealed a connection to the wars that
seems to have crossed from committed to obsessive. On
returning to New York, he told a writer for Men’s
Journal a year ago that he was struggling to adjust.
“I don’t know,” he said, “how to come home.”
A native of Brisbane, Ware attended law school and
played a lot of rugby, as evidenced by his wrong-way
nose. He began writing for Time in 2001 and gained
acclaim in Iraq as the rare journalist who reported
from within insurgent encampments. Ware jumped to CNN
three years ago.
Colleagues describe him as a daring and inquisitive
reporter, garrulous and hard-drinking among the small
fraternity of Western journalists abroad. His
reputation grew after a fling with Logan and an
alleged brawl with a rival suitor.
Going back several years, a fellow reporter said that
Ware struggled to accept rotations out of the war
zone that most correspondents craved.
“He looked forward to going. Then, when the time came
to leave, he would already be talking about coming
back to Baghdad,” said the associate, who asked not
to be named lest he alienate Ware. “If he is not in a
danger area, if he is not on television, then he
believes he is a lesser person.”
In Afghanistan in September, Ware rode in an Afghan
police truck that narrowly avoided an improvised
explosive device. Now he’s based in New York and
deployed to assignments around the world.
Sitting in the midst of one of CNN’s over-packed
studio panels after Obama’s speech, Ware seemed not
just interested but impelled to speak, intent on not
having the prospects in Afghanistan romanticized.
He told host Anderson Cooper how crucial it was to
engage not just the central government but also the
far-flung warlords who control much of the country.
Yes, some local leaders might fight the Taliban for
cash, but that would present its own complications.
“If they say ‘There will be no Taliban in my
district,’ then there will be no Taliban in their
district,” Ware said. “And if they show up, they
won’t just kill their wife and their father and their
mother. They’ll kill their goats, their dogs and
everything.”
A day later, Ware had tucked in his rumpled shirt and
thrown on a sport jacket, but his picture of the war
zone remained relentlessly unkempt realpolitik.
“Bottom line, America did not go there to save Afghan
women,” he said, “to educate Afghan children.”
Host Erica Hill seemed taken aback, arguing that many
Americans would fight the notion they couldn’t do
much to help average Afghans. Ware smiled and
shrugged, responding: “It is what it is.”
You might think Ware’s rap would draw raves from the
left, but he argued that Obama’s 30,000 troop buildup
could help. The soldiers and Marines can’t “win” the
way some conservatives imply, but they just might be
able to clear enough space so the parties — including
tribal leaders and the Afghan, Pakistani and Indian
governments — can hammer out a political deal.
“With a couple of miracles and a sprinkle of luck,”
he said, “it’s theoretically possible.”
I talked to several other war correspondents about
Ware and, to a person, they admired his intelligence,
bravery and reporting skills. They also wondered if
he had become a little too enamored of his own
persona.
Watching Ware, I was struck by competing impulses —
charmed by this rough-hewn character, even as I
wondered how much it has become studied; impressed by
his repeated forays into danger but saddened at the
thought he’s become a prisoner of his own
compulsions.
He has many reasons to be impressed by his own
knowledge but also should remind himself of what he
can’t know.
“A lot of us can think we have spent so much time
here that we see the big picture. But we don’t see
the big picture,” said one reporter who worked with
Ware in Iraq. “We were not in Washington or Brussels
or wherever else the rest of the story was being
told. We need to remember, no matter how much we
learn, perhaps there are others who see the big
picture better than we do.”
Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times
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