Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Town-hall meeting at Ohio State not beginning or end

Friday, Feb. 20, 1998 | 10:58 a.m.

HISTORY IS AGAIN being repeated as Americans take sides over the use of military force. The so-called town-hall meeting at Ohio State University brought all of the naysayers to the front, when a couple of dozen demonstrators in a crowd of almost 6,000 people displayed bad manners by interrupting Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Secretary of Defense William Cohen and National Security Adviser Samuel Berger. They shouldn't have expected anything else when holding the meeting on a U.S. university campus.

If our top foreign-policy advisers put the meeting on CNN to impress Saddam Hussein, those few demonstrators might have sent him the wrong message. Wednesday evening and Thursday morning television news programs jumped all over the story and, unless a visitor knew better, they might have believed a majority of the crowd was negative. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., made a wise evaluation when saying, "You don't conduct national security through town-hall meetings." McCain added, "I think someone who doesn't understand America and the way we operate might take some encouragement." The senator, a supporter of military action, had Saddam Hussein in mind when making that observation.

Just in case some of our readers have forgotten what happened prior to Desert Storm in 1990 and 1991, let me remind them. Skinheads and neo-Nazis in Las Vegas wrote letters to our troops overseas and to their families to demoralize them. At the same time, Saddam Hussein entertained several world foreign-relations officials coming to Baghdad requesting he back off his aggressive stand and recall his army from Kuwait.

Even the Nevada Legislature became involved when Senate Joint Resolution 1 was introduced to show support for President George Bush and the troops in the Persian Gulf. No, it didn't pass unanimously, as Democrat Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani and Asemblyman Ken Haller voted against it. Haller said he "found it difficult to support President Bush on too much of anything." Chris, on the other hand, opposed it because it was a "call to war." Over in the Nevada Senate, Democrat Joe Neal also opposed the resolution and abstained from voting.

The Democrats in Congress didn't cover themselves with glory, and a majority of them second-guessed the president and opposed a resolution to support him. Popular Democrat members of Congress, including Sam Nunn of Georgia and Majority Leader George Mitchell, led the charge to oppose the resolution. They did their best to persuade Nevada's two Democrats to join them, but they failed, as Sens. Harry Reid and Richard Bryan supported Bush.

Reid told his fellow senators and the world, "The president, ladies and gentlemen, must be able to deal with foreign hostilities with a free hand; to use the diplomatic corps and the Marine Corps with equal facility, subject only to our power to force a halt to actions we deem contrary to the national interest.

"Mr. President, at this point and based on what we know about Saddam Hussein and the dark forces which rule Iraq, I do not believe that allowing the president to conduct a strong foreign policy is against that interest."

Sen. Bryan, also showing confidence in President Bush, told his colleagues, "Endorsing the United Nations Resolution which authorizes the use of force will provide the president with the authority to launch an offensive. The U.N. resolution is no order to attack, no ultimatum requiring an immediate offensive. It is up to President Bush to discern if diplomatic movement can continue in the policy of sanctions and containment. It will then be up to the president to make that awesome decision of launching an offensive."

When the final vote came, Reid, Bryan and Sen. Albert Gore, D-Tenn., were among only 10 Democrats to overlook partisan politics and support Bush when he needed them.

There was also a bubble of opposition to taking on Iraq at some colleges and even the usual "we're against the establishment" gatherings in San Francisco. Sure, and Ramsey Clark went to Baghdad, and the Arab nations, after our ground forces went into action, whined about us being too rough on Saddam's Republican Army.

When all is said and done, the end results will be some heavy bombing of targets in Iraq, unless its leader backs off his present stand. President Bill Clinton has a Congress that went on vacation rather than give him a resolution of support. This should be their first act upon returning to business, and, unless Saddam changes his stance, it may happen before they return to Washington. Then they could all second-guess him if things went badly or praise him if he is successful.