The draft argument
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The draft argument is the exchange John Kiriakou recalls when asked whether the reckoning over Vietnam had shaken his view of his own country. It had not, "not at first", and the reason is contained in a dispute he had with a friend in the College Democrats and had not thought about in years.

His stated position on the war was unambiguous: "I opposed the war. I thought it was immoral. I thought it was illegal." His position on serving in it was the opposite, and he offers no reconciliation of the two.

> "But if I had been drafted, I would have gone. And he said if he had been drafted, he would have gone to Canada. And we had a real argument about that. And he said to me, how can you oppose a war and then go fight in it? And I said, because my country asked me to. I wouldn't give that same answer today, but as an 18-year-old that's what I believed."

He sets the contradiction against another from the same period. In September 1984, aged nineteen, he introduced George McGovern at the announcement of his presidential candidacy, and "in my speech of introduction, I said that he was one of the few senators to stand up to the illegal and immoral war in Vietnam." Put to him that this sits badly with his support for the invasion of Grenada, his answer is simply that he was nineteen and "still figuring it out."

The same period produced the sharpest illustration of the split. He and his friends would walk up to the White House gate at night, "when you could walk right up to the gate," and shout "Fuck you, Reagan!" at whatever they had seen on the news, "and then I'd go back to the College Democrats and say, you know, guys, I've got to go with Reagan on this one."

What held it all together was a proposition he states plainly and dates precisely. "Sure, we made mistakes, certainly, but our hearts were in the right place. I really believed that we were that shining city on a hill. Back then and for many years later, really until September 11, I believed that."

See also

- John Kiriakou
- George McGovern
- Invasion of Grenada
