Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion 20141116

Something that has also hold true. Also several parks that were completely surrounded by water but up until fairly recently was hard to enjoy it. There is the shocking and lack of restaurants on the water and medicine always turns its back on its lakes. They said we need to protect them and make parks that is Something Better since then i want people to understand how madnesses history is connected to the history of wisconsin. When local history is diminished to be parochial fled knowing the history of your corner tells you about the world a lot people to understand that part but also how we got the way we are today. Thank you for coming. It is good to the end of cooler room set was of little scary. I survived afghanistan only to die at kramer books. It is good to see you here. To see people interested in this subject because back in 2001 afghanistan seem to be the obvious thing to do and their Approval Rating for the invasion was in the 90s october 2001 now is down in the teens so often when americans tire of a war they dont want to hear about it anymore so that is not really the case here. What i can tell from the reception is the micro view of american interventionism about Foreign Countries since the beginning there is rarely even a few months where we are not invading were occupying another country. Afghanistan is the largest occupation with no end in sight. We have an agreement in place through the years 2824 and obama announced u. S. Troops will be indefinitely but thinking baxters 2010 but it is the centerpiece of the of look in response to obama as announcement for withdrawal. It is a look from the end of the beginning to assess the beginning of the end in 2010. Mentally and emotionally as they say they pivoted away from afghanistan. Even though the troops are still there to fight and kill and die the mood of the country is moving to other priorities like the war in syria. This is an attempt to look at the war through the lens of the Afghan People and has been marketed from the very beginning for the hearts and minds in the muslim world. I was frustrated like Many Americans by how the u. S. Media was so focused on the troops and their experience. You can really cover a war of without looking up the troops for looking at these civilians. That is what the media had been doing since 2001 in news media has then melting down Financial Aid that it is hard work and dangerous in the lot of cowardice but it is a lot more fun to drive around. Select one to introduce my colleague whom i have known for about 20 years because at that time he was the cartoonist for the Baltimore Sun and hosting the convention when we met in 1995 the profession has changed a lot there is though is that spot with the economist by it to adapt and change we have the most recent books funded through kickstarter. That is a reflection of though way the media has changed. So he will ask me some questions. Definitely. Then we will throw with out to you. Just as a little background probably many of you have never met a cartoonist. There is probably less than 100 practicing today. Just like comedians there are all different styles and already what you have gleaned from those opening moments is what amazing journalist he is. They think they put out said jokes all the time that the soul is journalism. But it this book has righty you are very capable. Cartoons but you file as a cartoonist. So tell us about the trip and being a cartoonist like this. And using cartoons instead of words. The most famous recent example but there are lots of others. And i have been doing this since the mid 90s. But to see what they can run cannot see in the words cannot depicted is that in between. Sewed in that book to talk about comics are you need to allow you to project yourself into the character on the page the way the media dont. Your not probably thinking ibm clinch eastwood or merrill street. And to emphasize that is not your experience. If you read pros this specific even if they are gifted but especially with the very abstract style style like 50 minutes or simpsons people to protect themselves with a blank canvas in that situation so probably my First Successful book about journalism was based on into afghanistan and back. So i went to cover the war and i had no intention to write to the book or any type of comics in was a way to make a lot of money by doing something daring to see afghanistan at the same time. But i got myself into more than i expected. Tougher than most casualtys of then a convoy. We lost three colleagues and eights were seriously wounded. Hill is 31 2 weeks of carnage and chaos in real cave mouth just direct. Racked. I could not do anything. I did not want to go out or talk to anybody. My publisher was worried about me. He said what is going on . You should write a book about this everybody wants to know what it is like. They dont care about the politics they just can see. So i had this instant books that which was the first it into the in any form because there is a huge appetite for that knowledge. Looking back it does seem that you can almost taste of the grit did your teeth. But it was rough around the edges. So i had then working on it over the last 40 years. And this book attempts to bring that together. So the cartooning aspect was interesting. I went to shell other cartoonists and ive brought them along because traveling is depressing and a hard and hard to do it alone. I invited mapped and stephen prided himself. [laughter] i remember the first time the cartoon thing happened since taking in a public park to sketch people and buildings nearby. Is silly people started to gather around us. They were fascinated. And we realized they had never received any one character because it is illegal under the taliban. The First Experience of representative art it is magical. So to see where people had never seen a map of afghanistan they did not know what their country looked like. That explains when you go up and it is high it is the mountain. I always wondered why that road was like that. By a new if you went to that way three days he would get there. It is the classic medium. The police came in there for hundreds demanding they were heavily armed to demand and drawings and characters and it got little bit out of control. We felt like rock stars and it is still the goal still today under karzai. But cartooning was cool. And then to understand with the Afghan National army. And we were dressed alike locals was very impressive appearance a beer ads. But then my favorite quotation was the officers said we know you are not a journalist. He said there are reports you were speaking to the Afghan People. Of american journalists never talk to the Afghan People only the soldiers. That is totally true. And i imagine that is the first paying facie drawing is your cartoon that to be a problem for the future. Host if you want to go to afghanistan i would not know where to start you were pretty organized. What were the logistics like. Other than and getting killed go to the Afghan Embassy or the consulate in new york city. And then you drop off the passport to get the visa the next day then you fly into kabul and there you are. But it wasnt very different affair the country was divided by the Northern Alliance is the extreme northeast the taliban controlled 90 percent of the country. Is complicate complicated dramatically but from the United Nations and the u. S. Government but no Material Support man that taliban was the controllers of the country. Grossi you could go to those countries to get the visa or you do when i did. You go to the Northern Alliance the saw there was no airport at the time like dan rather it is like camping into a rugged National Park then you get to the battle line they call each other they know each other on the radio and say we have an american in journalist. He wants duke teeeight 20 his visa give us a 20 minute ceasefire bid to drive into the middle of the battle he would pick us up and then to arrive on the taliban side for 30 they would stay lamp on your visa that gives the most interesting experience at the televisa airport. [laughter] majestic logistically all the bridges were gone, no infrastructure whatsoever. I remember calling a story to the village voice. There is no way using a Satellite Phone to folks that up to a laptop to get a Strong Enough signal f14 dollars a minute to get the story loaded because that takes two hours. So you have to call it in like a baseball reporter. I was on the phone and she was irritated at one point she said how do spell that i say look that up by their own time can you go somewhere quiet . I said that is a battle. Finally she said i dont understand and i said what dont you understand . She said why dont you just go to king goes . Seriously it is the 14th century spanish you had this permitted experience but then you could file the cartoons have had it been since then . But the project is to see what had gotten better or worse the cards on the table was against the war all along but you have to give nato credit where it is due. They built a lot. There are fewer dropped calls in afghanistan they and the new york doityourself phone service is important to you. I was using wifi you can use the self there the sulfone anywhere there is electricity in most places at least 12 hours a day above the floor there was zero. Like a good scheme and a cartoon mennonite go to my house to draw then scan in black and white than applaud that small file that i had as a colleague was very talented as well who would get hit and color it then she would send out to my clients including a the new york times. Think of that miracle every single day trying a cartoon about the experience then the next day or that night it is alive it still blows my mind senate is pretty impressive but lets open to questions. He has been an inspiration for us and to put himself out there and elevating the bar for all of us why did my own version to be an artist in residence indebted for three months in bermuda. I did a series of cartoons about the politics the road has been paved there for awhile but there was a different experience. So anything you like to ask that will open the floor for questions. Speesix [inaudible] the question is to afghans have a different idea of journalism than what we do . Speeto [inaudible] our journalists military a propaganda people . Somewhat surprising a vibrant the vietminh the kabul. Also a surprisingly vibrant talk radio, infrastructure, but they definitely view for reporters particularly americans with propaganda. That is true with every variety that i met with the city or a village or if the ethnicity or political affiliation, frankly can you blame them . America reporters have done a really terrible job in afghanistan. I cannot speak to iraq but when there problem but it is not that hard. Begins it is shameful that reporters from the viet outlets are not getting fair reporters to do that kind of work. You cannot blame them. Whenever you see them it is traveling through u. S. Troops and then bring sunglasses and looking pretty. But but then the other facilities that is it. Theyre not getting the story of war on the ground. I hate to that expression by the way. I have a question. For having a place to work. The you cannot buy our supplies for afghanistan. There are Stationery Stores you to get the pakistan a mated notebooks and pens but basically anything indeed i have to bring with me. And they break a lot of the trip so bring to of everything that you need bloodfin to drive very incrementally on purpose id just wanted to be able but this was stripped down. But then you come all this way and cannot do your work for komen of this part. The temperatures are brutal but it was already 132 degrees by using your mind will malts but it is cold that night and hot during the day youre not eating defense in. When youre about to be heard each but the one thing i like about cartooning is a mellow a job. But you are in the field and those that are period pitiful field. Yes but now if you are in a pinch you can use the eye to it the id tattoos can with is the backup with it . Solar panels and Satellite Phones. For real. Which i did not end up using. On your phone speeto speeto. That is huge. The question was as my work got back to the people in afghanistan . Actually as there is still bookstores anywhere in the country outside of kabul but the bookseller i walked into his store i was front and center and charging 45 for my book . They said yes. Is a that awesome . Then were is my royalty . [laughter] but he would price gouging in the true afghan tradition. Where there are journalistsfd go further than american countries . Yes. The question was would there be journalists in Foreign Countries that would be more dangerous and go further than someone like ted rall . Yes. I really admired the work of a lot of foreign reporters from all over the world and including especially i think indians and russians who had ethnic reasons to be scared of going, political reasons to be scared of going to afghanistan in remote places. I matter with russian radio reporter who is incredibly intrepid. He would go anywhere. I met him in 2001 and i love this story. We are banging down this road. There are bombs going off in the distance, refugees streaming on the streets. Everything has been burned out. Its just hell on earth. My knuckles are bleeding because its so dry. They were just like bleeding and cracking. He is like its good to be bad. I said really . He said i was in the red army in the 80s. I was an occupation soldier. I said its good to be back . He says yes it is because now mr. American all this belongs to you. [laughter] he never got screwed around by the afghans. They respected him a lot and that kind of goes to the title of the book. He told me know as soon as we left they stopped hating russians and that turned out to be pretty much the experience that i had. One night i was in a hotel with all taliban soldiers. It was ramadan and we invited ourselves to break fast with some of these guys. There was an old guy who is a veteran mujahideen who couldnt stop yammering about the proper way to shoot a stinger missile and how the kids today just you know. [laughter] the hipster jihadis. He was a really interesting character. He was in his late 60s a big white beard and during the day he worked for the karzai government as a deputy minister of irrigation helping to dig canals and irrigation ditches throughout the country. At night he went out with this taliban comrades and blew them up. Is the great cycle of life. Theres one business against the other. He asked me what do americans think of us . Why do they think we are at war with them and they said they think you hate their freedoms. They think you dont like that women are not wearing burkas. They think you dont like pornography. They think you dont like their liberal lifestyle and he just started laughing and laughing and laughing. He said look at vietnam. He said you killed 2 million vietnamese people but today you can go to vietnam as an american mba tourists, stay on the beach, eat great food and everyone treats you well. No one hurts you and in fact vietnam is a Major Trading partner of the united states. He will be just like that here. First we will kill you and after we kill you we will welcome you back as honored guests. Excellent. Another question . The question for both of you. Sort of a broad question. Where do you feel cartooning fits then in this repertoire in the big scheme of things . Go from there. The question was where do you feel, do we feel cartooning fits into repertoires . My feeling first of all we are all aware that we are in the middle of an interesting disruptive digital revolution when it comes to media and maybe in some ways worry where the canary in a coal mine. As newspaper started to retrench because their income was diminishing cartoonists were some of the first casualties. As we are looking forward people had to turn to the web like so many others that looking for a way to make income. What im seeing actually is partly because of the groundbreaking groundbreaking work ted is done and new opportunities because in addition to what ted has been doing this beyond reportage being a trailblazer outside of the traditional newspaper job to make a living and try to forge a way to express his opinions in this really unique and powerful media. More and more people are recognizing that newspapers make go away but cartoons leave some value. So two interesting examples that have transpired in the past few years. Politico which you are familiar with primarily a webbased organization has hired a fulltime political cartoonist. Nmap worker who lives here in d. C. More recently a medium Current Events web site how would you describe it, has hired a fulltime cartoonist and he in turn has a budget to pay other cartoonists to run their work on a daily basis. Understanding there is great value to have cartoonist and they are worth paying for. I suspect as we enter this new wild west days in the media landscape all sorts of groups are going to be looking for quality work and where i think a lot of quality work can be done by those cartoonists are capable is this kind of reportage. We are actually not confined to that little box square that you have in the daily newspaper. One of the advantages of the web as you have all the landscape you want but you have got to fill it with quality. Also you are going to find that a new generation of satirists who dont necessarily do the conventional way that cartoonists have done it before, the donkeys and elephants and uncle sam but are now being raised on a whole different menu of goodies from animation and south park and they theyre going to look for other media as the mediums to get out the satiric perspective using pictures as we have as part of the most recent and amongst the last generation going on for centuries in the print web. Im excited about these new prospects and i do think when you have people with adventurous notions and creativity just like ted the fact that even thought of doing this was too was an amazing thing we are going to find People Like Us who are going to take this craft and take it into the 21st century. Your thoughts. Like i could follow that up. That is awesome. Thats exactly right and i think its important to educate editors. I think thats maybe readers like cartoons. We know it because im a cartoonist and a columnist and i often do cartooning in a column about the very same subject and i will see the way cartoons can go viral way cartoons and go viral and away way that columns rarely can. We look at thousands of like us on facebook and hundreds of retweets on twitter and the column could be really good but it might just get a dozen Facebook Live senate disappears. And im quoting matt morris on this. He said if you have 1 2 decent cartoon about obamas for isis you have the only cartoon about that and its going to float around in is going to be around for weeks and months and it could float around next year. If you have one article about obama on isis you have one at 100 in spain pushed down by the 24hour news cycle and is going to be gone in five minutes. So its clear, cartoons are huge. The problem we have is that editors and producers they are kind of in the way. The web is a democratizing force but not all web sites are created equal. Putting something on your own personal tumbler is just not going to get the play that being on politicos web site will or cbs news. Com or whatever. A good question. Another question. Yes sir. I have heard of some of your cartoons mike ross [inaudible] thats a very good question. The question is do i worry that i might do a cartoon that might cross a line of sensitivity including religion . The short answer is i dont give a dam about that and i dont think any cartoonist can or should care about that. Your duty is to the high god of satire and its not to the united states. Its not to the democratic party. Its not to my mom. Its too that god of satire so if its funny and its smart that im going to do it. Now that said i dont intentionally try to, sometimes you end up causing offense inadvertently which i hate because i usually try to cause offense intentionally and sometimes you get a friendly fire situation where you are aiming at someone or you hit another group of people. You asked about religion. I tends generally not to do a lot of cartoons mocking religion because to me religion is so obviously stupid that theres no need to make fun of it and i dont find such jokes funny but thats just me personally. But that is my rules. I think im a little more out there than most of my editorial cartoonist colleagues especially those who have to work in newspapers. Also International Cartoonist who have to live on the frontline there are more often have to be more wary. Good example. Pakistani cartoonist whos newspaper which i think was the hindu times was attacked seven times by the taliban over the years a one editor was ambushed and his driver killed. The cartoonist will now probably not due cartoons for that newspaper anymore because the newspaper has to be so careful about what it says that they wouldnt be able to print cartoons that he would be able to speak freely. So he goes on line. A lot of cartoonist for finding that their voices are little more dangerous for them to do whatever they want in a newspaper or finding other outlets. We are finding more and more people going on line. [inaudible] the question is what are the prospects for peace in afghanistan . Snowball, hot place downstairs. The thing is what happened in 2001 when the taliban were nominally overthrown and karzai was installed is that it ended up putting building pressure on a Pressure Cooker that was already boiling hot. All the factions are waiting for the american and the nato withdrawal and civil war is certain to resume. This is the afghan way. Its what they do and they are very good at it. Its how its going to be settled. There is no motivation. The problem is really that no party can fight the other parties to a decisive victory. Afghanistan is divided basically into seven major ethnic groups and the biggest one barely as half of the population the pashtuns. So theyre never going to dominate that way. They can form temporary alliances of convenience but ultimately they all want to be in charge. Wouldnt you . So i think that we have set up a bad situation there. What we should have done in 2001 is if i dont think we should have gone in but if we were going to go and we should have gone in basically with the marshall plan. Leave them a bunch of infrastructure say okay now you guys work it out and we are out of here. Hope you dont blow it all up and that would be sad. I think that might have maybe possibly lead to some sort of process but at this point its been so bored by so many mistakes. Supporting karzai who had no indigenous political support, supporting him and his clique throughout the years of stealing billions of dollars of your tax dollars and putting them on pallets and shipping them to switzerland literally. The cobbled bank fiasco. Look it up. Its insane. Its like the kind of stuff the pranksters did in 2008 here. The division between the extreme wealth of a tiny few who are building these cheesy megamansions out in kabul and everyone else who is starving to death literally, theres just too much rage. Theres too much anger. I dont think theres going to be peace anytime soon but i really really want to be wrong. [inaudible] the question is what is my view view about isis or isil or whatever it is we are calling it nowadays and whether we should do anything about it. Yesterday on npr diane reid who is otherwise great, it was very striking because its so mainstream. Today on the diane cream show should we go in . Where already talking isis. Should we attack more . We will have the discussion from all sides of the issue. Unlike so the option is never presented even on liberal msnbc that we shouldnt be involved at all. So this is the interventionist mindset that has become reflexive that im talking about in the book. My view about this is you know isis scares me but i dont thi think they are our business to the extent that we wear our creation in large part because we financed and armed through back channels the groups that ultimately became isis and so its our business. History shows in afghanistan and iraq and in libya that these adventures always turns out. They can turn a bad situation into a worse situation. In 2001 we replace the worlds worst government with one thats even worse. I talked to someone in kabul who said you know back then i used to walk to the stadium and watch them kill rapists. Now i watch them on television because they are in the government. The u. S. Government has a tendency to pick the wrong side in these disputes. We have a tendency to back the wrong side. There are so many obvious things that we ought to be doing that we are not. Even mainstream pundits are calling for the u. S. To loosen ties with iran. Thats like 30 years overdue. Why are we still angry about the hostage crisis . Its time to end that. I watched the james foley video and ive seen the other two also. I felt the same thing everybody else felt that we can get dragged into a war for emotional reasons. This has to be a coldblooded decision. There have to be u. S. Interests at stake in there are not. There just are not. They did not pose any kind of direct threat even according to the Obama Administration to the night stay so therefore we shouldnt be there. We should let this play out and thats my opinion. We are going to take one more question but before we do a quick word about kickstarter. You did a kickstarter. The kickstarter was not just from the book. It was to fund the trip in 2010 to go to afghanistan. The book actually came out of the trip. I wanted to go back to afghanistan but this time like in 2001 i found it almost impossible to get any kind of funding from a newspaper like the l. A. Times. They were likely we will print it and well will pay you something that you need tens of thousands of dollars to do war correspondents say. Everything is paid for in 100dollar bills in most places. There is no way to get it. My friend Stephanie Mcmillan said do it now because its going to get ruined. So she made a video of me and i think it worked because i already had a fan base. I was already known for for covering the subject and there was a hunger for it. I raised 26,000 out of 25,000 desired. Its not a kings ransom. I ended up paying about 40 but you know it certainly put a dent in my expenses and this came out of it. It was a good experience but then i tried it again two years later for more esoteric book about where wanted to travel to places under revolutionary control of the river delta and oxalate rebellion zone. All these places that are under control of radicals to see what its like to exist outside of the nationstate space. Everyone was like yeah no. I did a quick kickstarter for my book here. Ive been with the economist for 35 years and ive been a freelancer that entire time. I also own the copyright to the car team which is really big as you know. When was my 35th anniversary decided to do a kickstarter and i wanted to raise 20,000. I was really lucky, raised 100,000 in presold 46 copies. Its going to be great for cartoonists and others who are aspiring trying to get their books in this altar of the printed word. One more question. Who wants to take the last question. Surely here at kramerbooks. Its going to be a real good question, right . You are mentioning networks. [inaudible] [inaudible] it is an excellent question and its kind of a comp of gated answer. The posing of the question is that, the question was our u. S. News Media Outlets complicit in tragedies like the death of james foley because they failed to provide adequate protection and enough money and backing for war reporters who are hiring freelancers on the cheap . The short answer is yes, they are absolutely. Its repugnant to see the way i was one of those early guys. I remember in 2001 when everything fell apart in northern afghanistan and by that i mean Northern Alliance soldiers were looking for us to kill us and steal her money and they were starting to do it to our group. We had to flee. Each reporter for himself or herself. It became rapidly clear that there is a hierarchy here at their rich tv network guys were all staying at the warlords mansion and they had Running Water and flush toilets and satellite television. It was awesome except for your ethics. That not so much. Then below that there was a Washington Post reporter very brave. He was staying at the same guesthouse as me. One time we were hanging out and as runner comes up to her. Bear in mind this is the 14th century. Hands her a bag and shes like thats nice, thank you. I said whats that, lunch . She said its 100,000. Why no one ever brings me 100,000. But she was prettier than me. And you knew when everything was falling apart. There were guys from nbc news literally to call in choppers to deliver. For me when i had a fellow reporter who was grievously injured and later died we couldnt get him out because there was no support. He died there because of that. Its absolutely heinous the way now if anything its a lot worse because there are so few reporters who are actually on staffs of guys like fully they go out there. Their pit their lives at risk and they are getting paid a joke. Its ridiculous the pay rates that these people get. It would be insulting if they were going to cover comiccon. They are asked to die possibly out there. And editors dont have any problem with this. They go home and they tuck their kids in bed and they think theyre good people and they are not. Theyre paying their top executives way too much money. There is lots of money in these news organizations. Theyre just not giving it to the people who do the actual work and are risking their lives. The reason i said it was complicated is the flipside of that is is often far safer to travel independently than it is to have support. I would never go to afghanistan with security guards were guys with guns because under tribal code you are entitled in these countries to hospitality if you are an unarmed stranger. Ive talked my way out of death many times that way by saying what are you, are you a catholic . What do you mean . Do you are thinking of kidnapping me are hurting me or robbing me. Im an unarmed stranger. Yeah. You are muslim, right . You have to give me your best food. Or you are not muslim or jewish. They would get really offended. Im serious its ridiculous what you have to