Berkeley and the CIA

The Berkeley Experience

My best friend in the world received engineering and law degrees from Cal Berkeley, after his tour in Viet Nam.  Today we use e-mail and the phone, but back then, for several years, we exchanged weekly letters..  I'll call him i-Pod.  I loved his Berkeley letters, because he reveled in tweaking the pasty faced, anti-war students who dominated  campus politics. Remember the scene in Forest Gump, where Gump, wearing his newly received Medal of Honor, runs into the anti-war protestors, and they assume he must be a John Kerry ass-wipe?  Same thing with i-Pod.  “ Went to a campus mixer to survey the local talent. One starry eyed hippie girl was obviously smitten by my notoriety.    We drank wine out of paper cups,  and she asked if I'd witnessed any atrocities?  I said no. I told her that I did have a door gunner (he, a Huey pilot) who could dot the eye of a slope and his water buffalo with a single burst from 2000 feet.  She nearly passed out.  No pussy, but it was worth it. ” iPod got the hell out of there after graduation from law school, and if he went back today, it would be in the pilot's seat of my B-52.  I'm telling you this because Mo Sup just called me in to watch a retired CIA operative,  Robert Baer,  on CBS News Sunday Morning.  The segment introduced Baer and his CIA wife from their retirement home in .... Berkeley, CA.  From whence they had also graduated many years back.  "Oh-oh," was my first thought.  Visions of Valerie and Mr. Plane danced in my head.  I was right. Baer's message is that Iran is about to dominate Middle Eastern, and we have to recognize that dominance, and dance with them.  This, after he listed the string of attacks on the United States that Iran has engineered.  "But wouldn't that be rewarding bad behavior," countered the interviewer?  "Yes. but so what," replied Baer.  He hopes President Obama, whom he's been advising,  will take his advice and play nice with Iran's Mullah's.  The question of Iran's vow to nuke Israel out of existence wasn't asked.  I get the feeling we're in the process of being rolled here, and this is a pre-conditioning exercise.    Trust me on this.  People who graduated from Cal Berkeley, and  return to live out their lives, are not to be trusted.  Neither are people who take their advice.  PS.  We watched the Coen Brother's comedy of CIA errors Burn After Reading  last night.  It received bad reviews, but I liked it a lot.  Not so much, MoSup.  By picking Leon Panetta to be the next CIA director, Obama signals that he views the CIA as a joke too.