Bloomberg News Raves About “Silk Road to Ruin”

Bloomberg News Service has published a rave review of SILK ROAD TO RUIN.

An excerpt:

For decades in the 19th century, the world’s superpowers competed in Central Asia in what became known as the Great Game, an epic scramble for influence and resources that still is being played today. Despite the high stakes — including what may be the planet’s largest reserves of oil and natural gas — the competition for the exotic lands between the Himalayas and Russia’s southern border has had remarkably few chroniclers.

With “Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?” Ted Rall fills that void with a book that combines fascination with Asian exoticism and the punchy distancing of cartoons and pop-culture irony.

Rall is a former investment banker and expert in the harsh but potentially wealthy region known as “the Stans.” His book is an unconventional, provocative and bitterly funny mix of travel diary, tour guide and graphic novel based on the author’s voyages, from Beijing to Turkmenistan through China’s remote Xinjiang region and the oil-rich steppes of Kazakhstan.

Rumsfeld Resigns

The sick bastard who made Robert McNamara look nearly human, whose handiwork murdered more than twice the 300,000 innocent people Saddam Hussein is accused of killing, has finally resigned.

You can’t feel sorry for the guy. After all, Saddam will hang for a mere 148 deaths. Can we hang the dark architects of the Afghan and Iraq wars 5000 times over? Nevertheless, it’s worth noting, this is another Bush lie (just a week ago, the “prez” issued the Rumster job security through January 2009). By throwing him under the bus Bush and Cheney (well, Cheney and Rove) think they’ll avoid a few investigations and, with a little luck, prison time. Within the context of today’s events, Rumsfeld is (cough) a victim.

Make no mistake–he is as evil as the human race comes. Donald Rumsfeld presided over the mass murder of more than 100 times as many people as Osama bin Laden. But George W. Bush, and the people of the United States who have tolerated his misbegotten and anticonstitutional interregnum, are ultimately responsible. And we’ll miss the evil gleam in the murderer’s eye.

Impeachment? A nice start.

Breaking: Post-Election Column to Contain Exclusive

Today’s syndicated column will contain, along with my analysis of yesterday’s midterm election results and what lies ahead in the coming year, exclusive information about a new Bush Administration attempt to seize unprecedented power for the executive branch. The piece is currently being edited and will be uploaded at approximately 2 pm East Coast time.

For press inquiries: chet@rall.com

Offer: Get Your Editing Ya-Yas Out, Earn a Sketch

Before it came out, a dozen people (including me) read my tome SILK ROAD TO RUIN several times each. And yet there are still typos in the first edition!

Soon it will be time to go back to press, and I’d like to fix as many typos as possible for the second printing. Here’s where you come in.

For each NEW typo you find, I’ll draw a sketch of anything you request (unless it’s offensive or too hard, in which case I’ll draw Bush or something) and mail it to you. Simply e-mail your typo (example: “On page 166, second paragraph, there’s a “the the”…) to chet@rall.com. Use the subject line “Silk Road Typos.”

The only catch: Only one sketch per typo. If someone else has already submitted your typo, you’re out of luck.

Special bonus offer: Find 15 errors of spelling and/or grammar and/or fact, get the original artwork for one of my recent syndicated cartoons. (OK if the 15 include errors submitted by others previously.)

Offer expires when I say so.

“A calm voice of reason during trying times.”

Today’s Dayton Daily News has a feature piece about SILK ROAD TO RUIN. Because the News requires registration, I’m posting it here:

Former Ohio resident paints Central Asia as political gold mine
By Vick Mickunas
Contributing Writer

Turn back the clock 30 years. A junior-high school student perused a National Geographic magazine in his mother’s backyard in Kettering.

He recalled that moment. “I pulled out a fold-out photograph of a pair of horsemen riding across the steppe. Jagged mountains filled the horizon. The photo had been taken in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, which — as I remember it — the magazine described as ‘the most remote place on Earth.’ “

That day, a dream was born. The young man was Ted Rall. He graduated from Fairmont West High School in 1981. In 1996, Rall traced the legendary Silk Road across Asia for a magazine article. His dream had become a reality.

Today, Rall is a nationally renowned political cartoonist, columnist, war correspondent, media pundit, travel writer and the author of more than a dozen books. Based in New York City, he’s made numerous treks to the countries known as the “Stans” — Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Central Asia seems remote to most Americans. Rall is convinced that we need to start paying more attention to it. He decided to write an in-depth political analysis of the region.

Those former Soviet republics may be obscure to most of us now, but Rall expects that to change soon. Why? Because the lands contain vast deposits of petroleum and natural gas. The Russians are interested. So are the Chinese.

Rall has written an eye-opening account, Silk Road to Ruin — Is Central Asia the New Middle East? The book details how the United States is making an effort to forge alliances with the leaders of these nations, most of whom are dictators.

We have competition. Rall sees a future where the “superpowers are vying for control of energy-rich areas.” He suggests that U.S. policy in Central Asia needs to change because “we need to have friendly relations with the people of these countries — not with the tyrants who are keeping them down.”

We squandered one opportunity with the collapse of the Soviet Union, he says.

Rall briefed me on the policy errors that took place. “These states became independent in late 1991. This was really Bill Clinton’s ballgame. U.S. policy toward the Stans was shaped by Clinton, and he blew it. It’s gone downhill since then.”

“Since 9/11, George Bush has really ramped up support for these heinous dictators. Both the Democratic and Republican parties have been equally, blissfully unaware, stupid and wrong when it came to Central Asia.”

Silk Road to Ruin is a masterful blend of history, policy, travelogue and insights. This reviewer found it vastly informative and entertaining. Rall serves up pithy essays that offer readers glimpses of the beauties and the dangers of these exotic lands. Rall’s maps, photos and distinctive graphic cartoons illustrate the text.

He’s a frequent guest on CNBC. “I’m a calm voice of reason during trying times,” he says. He’s also a gifted writer.

Ted Rall will give a multimedia presentation for Silk Road at Books & Co. at The Greene, 4453 Walnut St., Beavercreek, at 2 p.m. Saturday.

Silk Road to Ruin — Is Central Asia the New Middle East? by Ted Rall, NBM Publishing, 304 pages, $23.

Fan Mail

Some fan mail makes me tingle. This one from Steve was one of them:

I’ve been reading your book, Generalissimo El Busho, a collections of old columns and cartoons.
I was struck by how right you were in your predictions about the eventual course of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Keep it up,

Pundits, after all, are paid for being right most of the time. It’s a sad statement about the failure of the capitalist system that the most well-paid pundits in the country–Limbaugh, Coulter, Hannity, O’Reilly, Brooks, Friedman, Hitchens, etc.–are consistently wrong. If they were picking bum stocks the way they picked bum pols and wars, they’d get canned. Meanwhile, guys like me and Chomsky–who have been right 95% of the time (my big fuck-up was predicting that Howard Dean would be the 2004 Dem nominee) since 2000–get ignored by many media outlets.

There’s a lot less interest in having pundits get right than in having them parrot whatever happens to be the party line at the time. Fortunately, there are actual American readers, like Steve, who keep score.

Ted Rall Interview for Halifax’s CKDU Radio

I discussed SILK ROAD TO RUIN on CKDU radio in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Ted Rall Tonight on CNBC

I’ll be debating the war in Iraq and the upcoming midterm elections with former Texas Congressman Dick Armey and political risk theorist Ian Bremmer on Kudlow & Company on CNBC tonight between 5 and 6 pm tonight, East Coast time. Check your local listings for the channel number.

Olbermann: The Beginning of the End of America

In case you missed this powerful cry in the televised wilderness. Eight and a half minutes that every American should watch and, more importantly, listen to.

Cartoon Callout

I received the following e-mail today about today’s cartoon:

I have been searching for the text of his letter and cannot find it. It must be pretty whiny for you to call him out like this. Do you have a link to it or just the text? I would appreciate it, as would many others.

Here it is.