“Only the dead see the end of war” is a quote attributed to the Greek philosopher Plato, whose most famous student, Aristotle, would go on to mentor Alexander of Macedonia. Without a doubt, through his military campaigns in West Asia, Alexander knew Plato’s proverb by heart.

As his successors in time wage their campaigns in the deserts where Alexander once laid conquest, journalist Michael Ware’s somber documentary on the American war in Iraq shows audiences that the quote has stood the test of time.

Ware offers insight on the men that fought each other and the grueling effect of being a mediator had on him, a journalist whose sole objective was to capture the story behind all the death and mayhem.

Most of the footage shown in the film was edited from the camcorder Ware had during the seven years he worked in Iraq as a war correspondent for Times and later, CNN. In his footage and narration, Ware takes the viewer to a part of the Iraq war not commonly seen in most documentaries.

He showed the perspective of American soldiers living in a constant state of war, but more importantly, the point of view of the insurgents who fought them.

Ware became one of the few people who had gained the insurgents’ trust. He received footage and interviewed members of the various anti-American factions. Close-minded audiences, who have an impassioned view of the Iraq war, may be disinterested by Ware’s inclusion of the insurgent narrative.

With the use of unscripted footage that had minimal editing to preserve continuity, Ware succeeded in putting the audience in his shoes during the tense moments when he was with insurgents performing night raids on American bases.

The viewer feels Ware’s uneasiness as he breathed heavily while scanning the faces of masked men surrounding him, knowing he was at their mercy.   

His mediator role became apparent to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq, and Ware soon began receiving footage from him also.

This was a turning point for Ware, as through DVD’s delivered by Zarqawi’s men, he witnessed executions, bombings and ambushes that were filmed specially for him. The film showed new footage revealing the perilous life that the Iraqi people lived under insurgent rule. It even showed footage that Ware claimed Zarqawi didn’t plan on showing the world.

The documentary also took the audience to the coalition force’s battle to reclaim the insurgent stronghold cities, Fallujah and Ramadi. In these scenes, Ware narrated that he witnessed the war take its toll on the young men and turned them into hardened soldiers.

Unlike what many Hollywood movies would have the viewer believe, Ware and the soldiers interviewed revealed that adjusting to the life of a combatant doesn’t come without a heavy price. In many of the cases featured, soldiers lost their friends, found it difficult to operate their moral compasses and became irritated with their situation in those cities.

Sitting at an outpost waiting to be attacked made it difficult for the soldiers to tolerate any Iraqi they came across. Ware showed these feelings were mutual with the Iraqi people by the arbitrary detentions, violent arrests and the lack of value of Iraqi lives.

A recurring theme Ware talked about several times in the documentary was that war forces the individual to descend into a hollowed being, whose value of life diminishes, whether the individual be a soldier, insurgent, civilian or journalist.

There may be a darkness inside people released during war, and this darkness can never be put away until death. Ware ponders if this was the true meaning of Plato’s proverb, a notion that is hard to disagree with in the last ten minutes of the film.

Ware was with a squad of American soldiers investigating a village that was rumored to harbor terrorists when a shot rang out, an American soldier had shot and disarmed an insurgent. They dragged the dying man, likely a college-aged youth, inside a compound and dropped him into the graveled driveway.

For the next ten minutes, the documentary showed soldiers and Ware linger in the compound as the insurgent died. The noise from his wheezing is deafening as Ware was completely silent while filming and the soldiers occasionally walked by and uttered insulting remarks.

Believing the insurgent died, they threw a towel over his face and canceled the medical aid that the commander had reluctantly requested. Ware continued to film the body in silence as the insurgent began to breathe again.

Soldiers passed by and questioned if he was still alive but failed to perform any of the medical procedures that would have confirmed his vitals.

No medical attention was given and after reportedly twenty minutes, the man died.

Ware narrates that he could have said something and the soldiers would have been compelled to give the insurgent the care that they were obligated to. He admits that, like the soldiers, he had become dehumanized by the war and became someone he never thought he would become.

This scene was the most graphic in its ability to provoke a reaction from the viewer. Like the documentary as a whole, this scene’s message relied on emotion. Ware intentionally dedicates over ten minutes of the film to showing the man’s death so the viewer sees the dying man as a human being rather than an insurgent, which in turn provokes a sympathetic feeling.

The documentary was dark and realistic in its take on war and the human effects that are mostly ignored by world leaders. It’s unapologetic in its somber message, as it should be.

This is the reality of war, and to be specific, the Iraq war. A lot of the outcomes stemmed from the American contradictory policy of winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, yet treating them as second-class citizens in their own country.

Ware served his role amazingly as both a journalist finding the story behind the men fighting and as a documenter, bringing relevance back to a war that many Americans want to forget.