Ignore that Bill Clinton reference, I am trying to erase it from my mind!! I’ve been sitting outside on a bench for the past three hours writing portions of my paper, I have 8 pages and 4-7 to go with the entire day tomorrow to work on it (until 10PM).. I’ve finished the Truman/Reagan/HW Bush administration regarding Israel and now all I have left is Bill Clinton (half-way done).. then crap about AIPAC and the current presidential candidates! If I haven’t told you yet my mid-term paper is on the Israel Lobby : )
Today we went to the CIA, since I’m back I should tell you what happened:
It was a 40 minute ride to the CIA, yep it’s not in DC.. somewhere in northern Virginia though. The ride was amazing!! There were sooooo many trees, more than I have ever seen actually. California isn’t even as green as the forests here! There are also these huge mansions hidden every couple acres or so.. I wanna live there!
The infrastructure of the CIA itself was not impressive, compared to the buildings at Capitol Hill at least. Sorry no pictures, our RA’s threatened us with banishment if we even thought of bringing any electronic device.. we couldn’t even bring our own pens! That’s how hardcore it was.. Oh we weren’t even near the main gate but stopped and our bus got searched by 308201 dogs and police officers. It was cool.
The names of our speakers weren’t revealed to us, confidential stuff you know how it goes. The only areas we were allowed to visit was the Lobby and Gift Shop (which contained nothing!!). They had this book inside the Lobby that contained the names of agents that died on the job, a couple of those names were not there (each one is suppose to have a star then the name) so there were just stars and we asked why.. the lady told us that their names could not be given because it could endanger or expose the mission in which they participated in (which is still in continuation) There were blank names reaching as far back as the 1950’s!
The questions we asked got boring responses, someone asked if they knew who killed JFK, like they would tell us!! Hah we also asked about Iraq’s WMD, technology, and Mongolia.. they didn’t tell us anything relevant! I understand though..
After the Q&A session it was over, a couple of us went to ask the speakers personal questions though. I spoke to one of the ladies about a possible internship with the CIA and she said there are programs available for seniors! yayayayay! Then we talked about my mid-term topic, I needed inside advice.. she actually recognized that there was an Israeli Lobby going on which is pretty bad ass in itself. One of her friends that was speaking there went to Dartmouth, and she went to Brown (BAD ASS) Apparently a lot of recruiting is done at both of those schools.. I think the speakers program WAS a recruiting method, hah well she encouraged me even more to find a career in intelligence.. ahh I like the Department of State though, i’ll figure it out someday!
Oh oh ! I got my application packet today (for Georgetown) that way I can start if I want (not until after finals)… I also bought this book on the Secret History of Al-Qaeda, it’s really good I would recommend it to anyone who has common sense and a desire to know the roots of a dangerous organization (one whom I will eventually be tracking down, since the current generation is sucky)
Well I should stop writing and get back to my paper later gaters!
ps. I met some puerto ricans/dominican republican kids that live in the building right in front of us.. their spanish is nearly too fast to comprehend but they’re really funny.. It was very distracting so I didn’t finish my paper. That’s fine though since tomorrow I have ALL day yayayay!
July 3, 2008 at 5:50 am |
Cool stuff! The CIA sounded really tight.
hey guess what? i can drive you legally as of today :]]]
haha i’m telling everyone!
July 3, 2008 at 1:44 pm |
on the east coast you can drive legally at 16
it’s probably because they’re smarter,
for the most part
July 3, 2008 at 2:40 pm |
Would love to read your term paper if you ever finish it!
When I was in the Mid-East the spring after 9/11 most Syrians spoke quite fondly of him and had some respect for his Middle East diplomacy including his efforts w/the Arab-Israeli Crisis.
July 3, 2008 at 3:24 pm |
I always like to make fun of Bill Clinton but only because he’s a Clinton.. He actually did pretty ok with Israeli-Palestinian issues, even if the agreements didn’t completely work out.
It’s so much nicer working of term papers in Washington D.C., you actually have a chance to talk to people that may have been involved.. I met a Representative who was best friends with Truman, he knew a lot about the recognition of Israel : ) and we met with AIPAC reps. which helped too
July 3, 2008 at 5:25 pm |
JULIA DON’T FORGET TO PROOFREAD!!!!!!!!!!!!
July 3, 2008 at 5:30 pm |
our RA’s read our rough drafts, make fun of us and then hand it back haha so we get all our mistakes pointed out
July 3, 2008 at 7:45 pm |
good haha
and I’m soooo jealous you got to be inside the CIA lobby and giftshop.
July 4, 2008 at 6:03 pm |
are you making fun of me?