Asawin Suebsaeng

Interactive Writing Fellow

Asawin Suebsaeng is the interactive writing fellow at the Washington, DC, bureau of Mother Jones. He has also written for The American Prospect, the Bangkok Post, and Shoecomics.com.

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A graduate of Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Penn., Asawin came back to DC with hopes of putting his flimsy Creative Writing major, student newspaper tenure, and interest in human rights and political chicanery to some use. He started cutting his teeth at F&M's student-run weekly, The College Reporter, serving as editor in chief. He has interned at The American Prospect, been a reporter for the Bangkok Post, and scribbled for ShoeComics.com. His favorite movie is either Apocalypse Now or Pirahna 3D, depending on the day or mood.

Iran War Watch: Threatening Pakistan

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Fri Mar. 2, 2012 2:52 PM PST

Are the United States and Iran on a collision course over the Middle Eastern country's controversial nuclear program? We'll be posting the latest news on Iran-war fever—the intel, the media frenzy, the rhetoric.

The Pakistani government is moving forward with plans to construct a pipeline that would deliver natural gas from Iran. The multibillion-dollar project has been kicked around for six decades, with both parties now shooting for a December 2014 completion date.

For some reason, the State Department really isn't too fond of this:

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has threatened Pakistan with sanctions if the country continues with plans to build a natural gas pipeline to Iran. The U.S. is moving to squeeze Iran financially in a bid to force it to drop its nuclear program. But Pakistan has been unwilling to line up behind the U.S., saying it needs Iran, a neighbor, to help it meet a massive energy shortage.

Mrs. Clinton told a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee Wednesday that sanctions could be triggered if Islamabad presses ahead. As Pakistan’s economy already is in dire straits, the sanctions could be "particularly damaging" and "further undermine their economic status," Mrs. Clinton said.

Pakistan's top bureaucrat in the Petroleum and Natural Resources Ministry, Muhammad Ejaz Chaudhry, said the pipeline was crucial for Pakistan's energy security – the longstanding Pakistan position. But he added that Pakistan was "committed not to create any problems."

Despite the possibility of rough sanctions, Pakistani officials confirmed this week that the pipeline deal is still a go. "We are a sovereign country and we will do whatever is in the interest of Pakistan," Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani affirmed during an online Q&A.

Any potential sanctions targeting Pakistan's fragile economy would be in sync with the Obama administration's approach to pressuring the Iranian regime—economic sanctions recently imposed on Iran are harsher than they have been in decades, and international sanctions are taking a serious toll on the country's central bank and oil sales.

So in case you were wondering, yes, there are indeed other ways in which the US-Pakistan relationship can get even lousier.

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"The Lorax": Cue Fox News Freakout

The film adaptation of Dr. Seuss' beloved classic is fun, tree-friendly, and, apparently, a blood libel against job creators everywhere.

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Fri Mar. 2, 2012 4:00 AM PST

Photo courtesy of Universal PicturesThe Lorax
Universal Pictures
94 minutes

What to make of the far-left agenda of Illumination Entertainment's adaptation of Dr. Seuss' The Lorax? For starters, the new animated film promotes a worldview that elevates the Earth above humankind and private industry. Economic growth is maligned as a force for evil, while those so-called Truffula trees are put on a fluffly, polychromatic pedestal. Successful businessmen are demonized as Orwellian overlords and planet destroyers. And the movie even has the gall to glorify—gasp!—single moms.

These are some of the ways in which the inevitable conservative freak-out will manifest. Lou Dobbs on Fox Business has already started being a Brobdingnagian urethra about this movie, which he quickly condemned as "insidious nonsense from Hollywood." So, yes, The Lorax will feel like nefarious agitprop to those who exist in a world where anything short of being a total ass to trees is akin to letting the terrorists win.

For what it's worth, liberal devotees of the famous children's book are all frothy at the muzzle as well. Since its publication in 1971, The Lorax has been holy writ to those who like their children's literature with progressive convictions. (Seuss sardonically called the book "propaganda.") And as Mother Jones' resident Lorax expert Kate Sheppard reported, environmentalists and fans of the source material have for months expressed dismay over the film's self-parodying cross-promotion (which includes peddling "Truffula tree friendly" SUVs) and the advertisements' dilution of the story's green message.

But once you cancel out the drone of partisan hoopla, what you have is a high-tech, big-hearted update of the beloved Seuss fable.

[Read the full article]

"Project X": Drunk, Foul-Mouthed Nerds Seduce Hot Girls and Blow Stuff Up

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Fri Mar. 2, 2012 4:00 AM PST

"Project X" (2012).

Project X
Warner Bros.
88 minutes

This weekend, you could go see the highly anticipated The Lorax, with all its Truffula tufts and fleecy anti-greed morality.

The new animated movie has a stout, gremlin-type creature talking how bad it is to screw over wildlife for profit. The CGI is truly eye-popping. And there are a whole lot of gyrating bears. So, yes, you should go see The Lorax. You absolutely should do that.

You totally, definitely should.

Or, you could succumb to 90 minutes' worth of bi-curious girls, rowdy gentlemen, loud music, self-destruction in the suburbs, booze guzzled, pills popped, and cops in riot gear. (In short, all the things that make life worth living.)

The rager quickly descends into a hyper-violent mess that can only be described as a cross between 10-Cent Beer Night and a party thrown by The Who.

And just to be perfectly clear, this movie isn't a remake of the other Project X, a 1987 film in which Helen Hunt and government-trained super-chimps almost trigger nuclear catastrophe. This year's Project X is steeped in a far greater realism: Three chemically altered nerds throw a house party with 1,500 other horny teenagers and almost burn an entire neighborhood to the ground in the process.

The film, produced by director Todd Phillips of The Hangover and Old School fame, is shot in contemporary found-footage/mockumentary mode—think: cinéma vérité, by way of Cloverfield and Parks and Recreation. If you've seen Revenge of the Nerds, Risky Business, and Superbad, you'll recognize the plot: Three high-school outcasts seek to up their social standing and prove to "bitches" that they are "large-scale ballers." So when one of them gets the family home all to himself on his birthday, the boys invite half of LA to attend their all-night blow-out. After some mass-texting and old-fashioned word of mouth, they wind up with a carouse so epic—two DJs, a "Naked Girls Only" pool, a moonbounce, every harmful substance imaginable—that Kanye West is rumored to be in attendance.

And thus the evening bacchanalia descends into a hyper-violent mess that can only be described as a cross between 10-Cent Beer Night and your average party thrown by The Who.

[Read more in the Mixed Media blog]

Iran War Watch: Netanyahu to Pressure Obama on Military Action

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Wed Feb. 29, 2012 2:11 PM PST

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly planning on urging President Obama to declare explicitly—and publicly—that the US is ready for military operations in the event that Iran breaches certain "red lines," a senior Israeli official tells Haaretz. The two leaders will meet in Washington this Monday, during which the prime minister will push the White House to ratchet up its rhetoric. (This may include asking the president to clarify his statements that he will take "no options off the table" to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.)

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Iran War Watch: Israel Might Keep US Out Of The Loop On Preemptive Strike

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

| Tue Feb. 28, 2012 9:57 AM PST

F-15I Ra'am fighters with the Israeli Air Force.

If Israeli leaders end up greenlighting a preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear installations, there's a decent chance American officials would be kept in the dark, a US intelligence official tells the AP. According to the source, Israeli officials said during private high-profile meetings that they would likely refrain from warning the Americans in order to "decrease the likelihood that the U.S. would be held responsible for failing to stop Israel's potential attack":

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak delivered the message to a series of top-level U.S. visitors...including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the White House national security adviser and the director of national intelligence, and top U.S. lawmakers, all trying to close the trust gap between Israel and the U.S. over how to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions. Netanyahu delivered the same message to all the Americans who have traveled to Israel for talks, the U.S. official said.

[...]

[T]he apparent decision to keep the U.S. in the dark also stems from Israel's frustration with the White House. After a visit by National Security Adviser Tom Donilon in particular, they became convinced the Americans would neither take military action, nor go along with unilateral action by Israel against Iran. The Israelis concluded they would have to conduct a strike unilaterally — a point they are likely to hammer home in a series of meetings over the next two weeks in Washington, the official said...The behind-the-scenes warning belies the publicly united front the two sides have attempted to craft with the shuttle diplomacy to each other's capitals.

This is hardly the first time Israeli officials have indicated that an air strike on Iranian nuclear facilities might be carried out without notifying Washington. This latest "behind-the-scenes warning" could be little more than the standard diplomatic posturing and leverage; nevertheless, the uneasy narrative of plausible deniability is already being established. But, as the AP story notes, American officials are getting a bit creative about keeping themselves in the loop:

U.S. intelligence and special operations officials have tried to keep a dialogue going with Israel, despite the high-level impasse, sharing with them options such as allowing Israel to use U.S. bases in the region from which to launch such a strike, as a way to make sure the Israelis give the Americans a heads-up, according to the U.S. official, and a former U.S. official with knowledge of the communications.