“My report was too hot to broadcast”

(2PM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

DeJa-Vu all over again, and again, and again……………………..that’s what hell on earth, War, especially those of choice because eventually everyone knows that truth and reality even the deniers, Is!

Word is Michael is suffering from severe PTSD after his many years of reporting In-Theaters, both, that had finally caught up to him with all he’s seen, reported on and as this report says especially didn’t report, or couldn’t.

A screen grab of Michael Ware during his period as a war correspondent with Time Magazine in the Middle east.

September 19, 2010 – Brisbane war correspondent Michael Ware is set to reveal that an alleged war crime he filmed in Iraq has never been seen or investigated by authorities.

Mr Ware, who covered the Afghanistan war from 2001 and the Iraq war from 2003 for Time magazine and the US television network CNN from 2006, returned to Brisbane in December suffering post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

His harrowing near-decade of war coverages were documented last Monday in the first of a two-part ABC Australian Story series, with the second part to be broadcast tomorrow night.

Snip

”Part of him was like ‘how could I just stand by and watch that happen’. It was a really horrible stark moral choice that he faced and he still wrestles with that,” he said. {read rest}

The program on this ABC Australian Story, Prisoner Of War – Part 1, which aired on 13 September 2010, can’t be viewed if outside of Australia due to copyright on their iView channel. But as this show already aired on the 13th, Prisoner Of War – Part 2 {there is a clip of this part} to air tomorrow 20 September 2010, they do have a transcript up on Part 1. Looking through their archives of previous iView shows brings up the same warning about copyright so no future view probably of this report unless they release it for public consumption for view outside of Australia.

They do have a gallery of some 15 photo’s at the site, none are damaging type pictures but look like cuts from the iView series.

Some cuts from the transcript of Part One:

MICHAEL WARE: What at the end of the day has always driven me in these environments, conflict environments, and what continues to drive me most is the intrigue and this intellectual thirst, I have to know the truth. In conflict everybody lies. Our government lies, their government lies, other governments lie. There is no one pure truth. And we never get to the truth. And the most that we can possibly hope for are but shards of the true story.

FMR STAFF SGT DAVID BELLAVIA, US ARMY INFANTRY: Michael Ware has completed the equivalent of eight to nine combat tours, there is no soldier in our military that has done that. Michael Ware has done that.

Snip

MICHAEL WARE: Time Magazine assigned me to remain un-imbedded, roaming free in Northern Iraq. It was there unfortunately that that I witnessed my first ever suicide bomb attack, and my second one. I heard an explosion and I spun around and there behind me, I saw the blast and very quickly rushed over. It was like a scene from Dante’s inferno, some image of hell. An Australian cameraman working for the ABC was killed and an Australian TV correspondent for the ABC was wounded. It took me some days, but eventually I was able to get the cameraman’s body out and the survivor with him and they both came home.

JOHN MARTINKUS, JOURNALIST: He built up a really really good team of people, people he could really trust, people who were highly intelligent but who could read the situation with this sense of purpose that they were actually producing good journalism and they were telling the truth.

Snip

MICHAEL WARE: There was just not the one war in Iraq. You had the American war versus the insurgency, who are nationalists fighting to free their country and who were purely politically motivated. Then there’s the American war with al Qaida in Iraq. Then there’s the Sunni and Shia war amongst the Iraqis themselves. There was the Arab versus Kurdish on again off again little conflict. And then there was the Iranian war versus most of those named above. And for better or for ill, everyone spoke to me. And it took a lot of earning but everyone trusted me and I tried to live up to those trusts. I went out and I found the Iraqis who were on the other side of everything. And first it was for the purpose of stories but they became my friends. Once someone invited you to their house, it’s incumbent upon them, at the dire risk of losing their good family name and all public standing, losing face, they must with that invitation of hospitality give you protection. Even if his brother shows up wanting to kill you he must defend you against all threats.

Snip

MICHAEL WARE: I’m here facing the demons from the war and the demons that have plagued me out of war. Now I’ve turned to all sorts of things to try and survive, or to get by. It just sucks not to feel anything. Anything to keep the demons at bay.