I have an interview in Sunday's "Sun" with CNN's Michael Ware who is in Afghanistan reporting on his own without the protection of the U.S. military. As highly dangerous as that it, Ware says that is the only way he can tell the full story of the war. If a news organzation signs an embed agreement with the Pentagon, I think there is a moral obligation to honor it -- or otherwise, do what Ware is doing. Does it seem like the AP is trying to have it both ways?

CNN heads to Afghanistan for 9/11 anniversary

By David Zurawik
September 6, 2009

Of all the cable and network news channel plans to commemorate the attacks of 9/11 this week with special programs, none seems more timely and relevant than that of CNN. The cable news network has sent a team of correspondents led by anchorman Anderson Cooper into Afghanistan to do a week's worth of nightly broadcasts on the status of the fight against the Taliban. The series starts Monday night and culminates in an hourlong wrap-up at 8 p.m. Saturday.

"Anderson Cooper 360" will broadcast live from Afghanistan, with the help of international correspondent Michael Ware, medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta and CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen.

And lest anyone think this is simply a case of hot spot-hopping anchorman coverage intended to paper over a lack of sustained reporting, CNN is one of the only U.S. news organizations, print or broadcast, with a full-time bureau in Afghanistan, and Cooper himself has been there several times before.

One of the most intriguing aspects of this week's coverage is the multiple lenses through which Cooper's team examines America's war effort. While Cooper and Gupta will be embedded with the U.S. forces, Ware will be on his own in the country, trying to see back "through the fence" at the U.S. military effort, to use the veteran reporter's terminology. Ware, a native Australian, spent more than a decade in the cable channel's Baghdad bureau covering the Iraq conflict.

Pointing to an "evolution in tactics by the Taliban," Cooper described his goals for the week in Afghanistan as "trying to get a status report on the war" and to "get as close to the front as possible, to go out on as many patrols as possible - and really get a sense of how the war's going," the 42-year-old Yale graduate said in a telephone interview last week. "What are the challenges? ... And what should we expect in terms of what's coming down the road? ... We believe very strongly in going to the front lines of any story and seeing for ourselves what's going on."

As for making the trip during the week of 9/11: "The way the United States originally got involved in Afghanistan is because of 9/11, and the same players are still a factor in the region," Cooper said.

"We have been planning this trip for quite a while, and it just happened to be the week of 9/11. And it seemed appropriate. ... And certainly the Obama administration makes a linkage in saying the reason we are there now is to stop al-Qaida and to protect the United States from any further attacks."

Cooper knows there are limits to what U.S. reporters are allowed to "see" while embedded, which is why Ware's contribution is so important.

"As much as we can, we're attempting to see through the fence to the other side - what the American war effort looks like from the Afghan perspective," Ware said last week via telephone from the war-torn country. "To do that, part of what we've done is to share the difficulties of life that the Afghans experience as a result of the insurgency, to get a real taste of what it's like living under the shadow of the Taliban far beyond the hollow rhetoric that you hear coming from the White House."

Ware described what it takes to get that perspective and bring it to American viewers.

"For me, what I find works best in Afghanistan is to operate independent of the U.S. military," Ware said. "You need to attempt to assimilate as much as is conceivably possible. That can be as simple as wearing Afghan dress or growing your beard to a reasonable Afghan length."

Contrasting his method of "surviving" and reporting free of the military in Afghanistan with the way he operated in Iraq, Ware said, "I go and I seek the favor and protection of the local powers that be. In this particular case, it might be the head of the most powerful tribe in the region that happens to support the Taliban. It might also mean seeking the protection of a tribe that's deeply invested in the Karzai government."

Ware, 40, said his contacts built up over the years also play a role in getting an independent view of the war effort.

"Operating independent of the military also means meeting with a senior police commander who's been my friend for seven years. [He] has outlived numerous police chiefs and governors, and he still somehow survives in the turmoil in Kandahar," the former Time magazine Baghdad correspondent says.

"You need to be able to turn to people ... with the power to offer you some modicum of protection. To rely on the tribal system itself that the Obama war mission has neglected is the way that we survive here."

If some of what Ware says echoes Vietnam, with the American military not fully understanding Afghan culture, the CNN correspondent says so be it.

"The facts on the ground rather frighteningly speak for themselves," he says after laying out a nuanced and extensive explanation of what the military appears to appreciate and not appreciate about Afghanistan as "barely more than a feudal society" built on tribes.

CNN is obviously trying to take advantage of its edge in international coverage with the week of reports billed as "Inside the Battle Zone." But why not? It is an edge the channel pays for by committing resources to bureaus in places like Afghanistan.

Furthermore, when many national TV operations offer little or none of their own international coverage, it is all the more impressive to hear the likes of Cooper and Ware dissecting and explaining the need for multiple points of view and methods of reporting so that American viewers can have trustworthy information about the conflict.

"It's unfortunate we have seen networks cutting back on international coverage. And what that means is stories don't get told about what's happening in Afghanistan, what's happening in Iraq, or what our troops are going through," Cooper said.

"Increasingly, those stories fade from the headlines and from the evening newscasts. CNN is in the enviable position of actually increasing our foreign coverage. We have a full-time correspondent in Afghanistan. We have a bureau there. We're able to be there on a daily basis. ... And then, we're able to go in with coverage like this during the week of 9/11. This is what we do."

'Inside the Battle Zone'
"Anderson Cooper 360: Inside the Battle Zone" airs Monday-Friday 10 p.m.-midnight on CNN. The series finale airs Saturday at 8 p.m.

Copyright © 2009, The Baltimore Sun

Michael Ware is in Mexico where he continues to dig deeper on the drug violence plaguing the country. The cartels are big business in Mexico, but it’s not just drugs anymore. They have branched out into other areas — like human smuggling. The cartels are now playing a central role in the multibillion dollar-a-year-business of illegal immigrant trafficking across the U.S. border. Some believe this is contributing to the spike in violence against U.S. border patrol agents. Michael Ware will have more for us tonight.

Michael Ware is in Mexico where he is reporting on the drug wars that continue to plague the country. He’s been looking into the cartels and explains how they run their operations – both on the Mexico and U.S. side of the border. Tonight he’ll profile Joaquin Guzman Loera, also known as “El Chapo,” the infamous “king” of the Mexican drug lords. This guy has an interesting story: he came from poverty but is now extremely wealthy. So wealthy in fact that he was ranked on the Forbes billionaire list. But that’s not the only list he’s on – he ranks right up there with Osama bin Laden on the FBI’s most wanted list. We’ll have more on “El Chapo” tonight.

Michael Ware interviews Lawyer Antonio Ortega who is one of the only people who has met Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and is brave enough to talk about it.

Michael Ware is across the border in Mexico today where he is reporting on Los Zetas – the ruthless arm of the Gulf drug cartel. Los Zetas is rumored to be behind the murder of Mexican police commander Jesus Antonio Romero and his entire family. The attack came at night and assassins used guns, grenades and set the entire house on fire. Get this – many leaders of Los Zetas were once part of the special forces for the Mexican military, but they defected to work for the cartels. Michael Ware will show us the bloody tactics used by the cartel and will explain their role in this lethal drug war.

• August 04, 2009 12:00am

Michael Ware and James Swanick ... making it big in America.

A COUPLE of former Courier-Mail journos continue to take big strides in the US - none more so than former news reporter turned CNN war correspondent Michael Ware.

From Brisbane to Baghdad

Advance and Crocmedia invites members to hear CNN’s international news correspondent and Australian journalist Michael Ware talk about his incredible journey from Brisbane to Baghdad.
Michael Ware is the only westerner to have survived an al-Qaeda kidnap. From the heart of Hollywood in Crocmedia’s office, comes one reporter's notebook of one of the biggest stories in recent years.
Listen to Ware's harrowing tales of reporting from the front line of the Iraq War.
Special Guest
Michael Ware, has lived the ‘War on Terror’ since 9/11, first in Afghanistan, then spending six years in Iraq as a front line journalist. Ware has covered virtually every major battle over the last two wars; from Shahi Kot to US invasion of Iraq, Fallujah, Samarra, Tal Afar, Basrah...to countless firefights, explosions and operations. Ware is considered the most authoritative voice on Iraq by the Pentagon and the U.S. Department of State.
Join us for a candid night of discussion and stories, including:


*Being kidnapped by Al Qaeda and surviving
*Dodging death every day
*Living in Baghdad near-continuously since before the American invasion
*Being embedded with American and British forces
*His views on American media
*The changing landscape of international media
*Going from Brisbane lawyer and Courier-Mail journalist to America’s authoritative journalist on Iraq

NOTE: The event has been pulled from the host site
as they have not yet confirmed all the details.
I'll re-post the link when it goes back online.

Michael is going to give a talk in Los Angeles on Thursday, July 30th, and it sounds like it will be an amazing event. Check out the info, and if you are anywhere nearby, by all means go if you can. He is an amazing speaker...

From Brisbane to Baghdad

(Thanks to Sharon for the tip!)

·  @JCDamian It's a story we are committed to covering. Our intl. corres. Michael Ware has actually moved to Mexico City! thx. Kiran
5:22 AM Mar 13th from web in reply to JCDamian

• 4/10/2002 FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT Afghanistan - America's Blind Eye
• 7/31/2002 WORLD IN FOCUS Interview with Michael Ware
• 3/24/2003 PM Ceremony held in northern Iraq for Paul Moran
• 7/26/2004 ENOUGH ROPE
• 9/14/2004 7:30 Hostage claim could be genuine, journalist says
• 9/23/2004 LATELINE 'No hope' for British hostage

One day early in 2007, Col. Bill Rapp, Petraeus's closest advisor, was in his office watching CNN's Michael Ware, a reporter he respected, discuss the state of the war. The correspondent gloomily said to his colleague Anderson Cooper that "it just doesn't seem that there's any road forward that does not involve the spilling of so much innocent blood or the abandonment of so many of the principles that we of the West hold dear."

Col. Rapp, who was already worried, "trying to figure if we needed to get out of Dodge," was so struck by the comment that he wrote it down. Then he picked up a marker and copied it onto the big erasable white board he used with his subordinates to brainstorm. "I wrote it down as a challenge to myself and the CIG [commander's initiatives group] to help the CG [commanding general] find an alternative. Those days were fairly bleak."

Their job as the brains behind Petraeus, he instructed them, was "to prove Mick Ware wrong." Rapp's deputy, Charlie Miller, arriving in Iraq in February 2007, estimated the chances of success at 10 to 15 percent. By May he considered himself a relative optimist and raised his guess to 35 to 40 percent. It was better but still far from a safe bet.

GPS features Kotak Mahindra Bank vice-chair Uday S. Kotak, Egyptian Minister of Trade and Industry Rachid M. Rachid, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, Royal Dutch Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer, CNN's Michael Ware, Iraqi Deputy PM Barham Saleh, Earth Institute's Jeffrey Sachs and Copenhagen Consensus' Bjorn Lomborg (CNN, SUN, 1pm).