About this project
In November 2001, The Village Voice and KFI Radio in Los Angeles sent me to Afghanistan to cover the U.S. invasion. The work I produced earned accolades from The Nation and The Washington Post, which called my work "the best journalism from Afghanistan by an American reporter." What I saw made me one of the earliest and most vocal opponents of the Afghanistan war. While Democrats called Afghanistan "the good war," I filed an essay from Afghanistan called "How We Lost the Afghan War." It was printed in December 2001.
Now I'd like to go back for an update, and to fill in the gaps by visiting parts of the country where US reporters never go. I have media outlets ready to publish my stories and a publisher for a book about this trip. But magazines and newspapers can't/won't cover travel costs. Because it costs tens of thousands of dollars to travel to a war zone, that's what I'm trying to raise here.
About To Afghanistan and Back and my 2001 trip:
In 2001 I was one of the only independent American reporters at the front lines in Kunduz and Takhar provinces. I was forced to flee after three weeks, when members of the media were targeted and systematically hunted down, robbed and murdered. Of the 45 members of my convoy, three were killed and several others seriously wounded.
As you'd expect, it was a harrowing experience. But it did make for a good story. I compiled the cartoons and columns I filed from the front with a new graphic novella to create the graphic travelogue "To Afghanistan and Back." It appeared in March 2002, becoming the first book of any kind to appear about the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Four years later, I published a follow-up, "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?", a collection of cartoons, photos and essays about and from the former Central Asian republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan.
Despite the hazards, there is no substitute for traveling as an independent reporter. Journalists embedded with the military are insulated from local people and often find themselves writing favorably about the soldiers upon whom they depend for security and personal protection. And they can't go wherever they want. And staff writers for major newspapers and broadcast networks are subject to editing and self-censorship, more often than not downplaying incidents that make the United States look bad.
What I'll Do This Time:
Now that the war in Afghanistan is a hot topic in the American press, I would like to return--to see what has changed and how life is going for Afghans, especially those in the remote provinces in the southwest where Western reporters never venture. I would like to report on the situation in comic and essay form, and compile the results in a book that would be a follow-up to "To Afghanistan and Back." Unfortunately, there aren't any newspapers, magazines or radio stations willing or able to cover the extremely high cost of travel to, from and within the Afghanistan war zone. Among the expenses are internal transportation and housing, security, and bribes to corrupt local officials in order to move about unmolested. I am extremely stingy, but inflation prevails during wartime and many expenses are covered with US$100 notes.
My publisher NBM would be willing to publish the book, but not to cover the travel expenses required to get in and out of Afghanistan. Hopefully, that's where you come in.
I think this is an important project, both for Americans and Afghans. Americans need the unvarnished truth from "Obama's War" but they aren't getting it. The Afghan people need us, the people who pay the army that is occupying their land, to learn their story--what they need, what they don't, and what they want from us.
IN THE EVENT THAT I RECEIVE MORE THAN $25,000 IN BACKING: It would be amazing to get that much, but if backing exceeds $25,000 I will use all extra funds for additional travel within Afghanistan and the region, including Iran and the Central Asian republics. I would file additional reports and an additional travelogue book.
CONTACT: I would be happy to answer and all questions from potential backers. Please email me at ted@rall.com.
DISCLAIMER: Anyone who travels to Afghanistan independently cannot vouchsafe with 100 percent certainty that he or she will return alive or intact. In the event that I am injured or killed as a result of this project, there is a possibility that I would not be able to perform all the promised work.
FAQ
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Funding Successful
This project successfully raised its funding goal on April 5, 2010.
Pledge $10 or more Pledge $10 or more
Receive blog updates about the project, dispatches from Afghanistan in real time, plus updates about the book and resulting articles after I return (this applies to all larger awards)
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Get a copy of the book, personally signed with a sketch
Pledge $500 or more Pledge $500 or more
You'll be personally thanked in the Acknowledgments section of the book, plus signed copies of the new book as well as To Afghanistan and Back and Silk Road to Ruin
Pledge $1,000 or more Pledge $1,000 or more
You get the signed book, the thank-you in said book, plus an original piece of artwork from the book, plus signed copies of the new book as well as To Afghanistan and Back and Silk Road to Ruin
Pledge $5,000 or more Pledge $5,000 or more
Pledge $5000 or more and I will meet you for dinner or drinks (and pick up the tab) anywhere in the New York City metropolitan area. Plus the books, thank-you, and original artwork!
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Pledge $10,000 or more and I will travel anywhere within the continental United States to meet you for dinner or drinks. If you'd like, I'll present a talk and show about my experiences in Afghanistan to you, your friends and/or a local organization. Plus the books, thank-you, and original artwork.
Project By
Connected as Ted Rall (2716 friends)
Ted Rall is an award-winning author, political columnist and editorial cartoonist whose work has been internationally syndicated for over 20 years. He has worked as a war correspondent in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and has hosted radio talk shows in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Twice the winner of the RFK Journalism Award and a Pulitzer Prize finalist, Rall is the author of nearly 20 books, most recently The Anti-American Manifesto (2010) and The Book of Obama: How We Went From Hope and Change to the Age of Revolt (2012).
Rall is an uncompromising and forceful advocate for radical change both in his work and in the real world. He is active in the Occupy movement.
Inspired after meeting pop artist Keith Haring in a Manhattan subway station in 1986, guerrilla editorial cartoonist, editorialist and war correspondent Rall began posting his cartoons on New York City streets. In 1991, Rall's cartoons were signed for national syndication. He has been with Universal Press Syndicate in 1996; his cartoons have appeared in hundreds of publications around the United States, including Time Magazine, Fortune, Rolling Stone, Esquire, the Los Angeles Times, Tucson Weekly, Willamette Week, Newark Star-Ledger, Village Voice and New York Times.
Rall is a neo-traditionalist who uses a unique drawing style to revive the aggressive approach of Thomas Nast, who viewed editorial cartoons as a vehicle for change. His focus is on issues important to ordinary working people--he keeps a sign asking "What do actual people care about?" above his drafting table--such as un- and underemployment, the environment and popular culture, but also comments on political and social trends.
From August 1998 to October 2001, Ted hosted his highly-rated, twice-weekly talk show on KFI Radio in Los Angeles. Highlights of Ted's show included "Stan Watch: Breaking News from Central Asia," which was simulcast by both National Public Radio and the BBC, and caustic interviews with such figures as former Klansman David Duke. Ted often broadcast his radio show from overseas, and made American radio history by airing the first live talk radio shows from Cuba, Uzbekistan and the frontlines of the war in Kashmir Province. Ted's live from Afghanistan reports for KFI Radio and written dispatches for the Village Voice was called "some of the best war reporting from Afghanistan" by The Nation.
Books
Non-Fiction/Prose
2010—The Anti-American Manifesto
2006 — Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?, graphic novellas and essays
2004 — Generalissimo El Busho: Essays and Cartoons on the Bush Years, essays and cartoons
2004 — Wake Up, You're Liberal!: How We Can Take America Back from the Right, prose non-fiction
2002 — Gas War: The Truth Behind the American Occupation of Afghanistan, prose non-fiction about the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline project
2002 — To Afghanistan and Back, graphic travelogue about Ted's experiences covering the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001
1998 — Revenge of the Latchkey Kids: An Illustrated Guide to Surviving the '90s and Beyond, Generation X manifesto/essays and cartoons
Anthologies edited by Ted Rall
2002 — Attitude: The New Subversive Political Cartoonists, interviews with and cartoons by 21 alternative political cartoonists
2004 — Attitude 2: The New Subversive Alternative Cartoonists, focuses on alternative gag cartoonists
2006 — Attitude 3: The New Subversive Online Cartoonists, focuses on webcomics
Cartoon Collections
2006 — America Gone Wild, cartoons from 2001 to 2006
2001 — Search and Destroy, cartoons from 1996 to 2000
1995 — All The Rules Have Changed, cartoons from 1992 to 1995, Rip Off Press, ISBN 0896201198 (out of print)
1992 — Waking Up In America, cartoons from 1987 to 1992, St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0312085184 (out of print)
Graphic Novels
2009 — The Year of Loving Dangerously, a memoir of bedhopping, homelessness and despair in the 1980s, with art by Pablo G. Callejo
2001 — 2024: A Graphic Novel, a parody and update of George Orwell's 1984
1998 — My War With Brian, autobiographical look at Ted's junior high experience being bullied
1996 — Real Americans Admit: The Worst Thing I've Ever Done!, collected depictions of personal confessions, NBM Publishing, ISBN 1561631574 (out of print)
Awards
1995 — Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award
1996 — Finalist, Pulitzer Prize
1997 — First Prize, Firecracker Alternative Press Award, for Real Americans Admit: The Worst Thing I've Ever Done!
1997 — First Prize, Deadline Club Award, Society of Professional Journalists
2000 — Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award
2001 — Best Book of the Year, Amazon.com, for 2024: A Graphic Novel
2002 — Best Book of the Year, American Library Association, for To Afghanistan and Back
2002 — James Aronson Award for Social Justice Graphics
2007 — Second Prize, Association of Alternative Newsweeklies Awards
2007 — Second Prize, Lambda Legal's "Life Without Fair Courts" cartoon contest
2007 — First Prize, New York Book Festival Competition, for Silk Road to Ruin
2008 — Ohioana Citation for Art and Journalism
2010 — Scripps Howard National Journalism Award, Finalist
2011 — First Prize, Association of Alternative Newsweeklies Awards
Upcoming Projects
Rall will publish "The Book of Obama: How We Went From Hope and Change to the Age of Revolt," in prose and cartoons, in late May 2012
