Voices of Dissent : Gulf crisis: A coffeehouse ‘speak-in’ offers the chance to air opinions, and some company to share the anxiety.

A coffeehouse, an open mike, a succession of anti-war speakers: As people counted down to the war deadline at the Java Cafe on Tuesday night, some of the ingredients were eerily evocative of another era.

The gathering at the Beverly Boulevard hangout was billed as a “speak-in” on the Persian Gulf crisis. It was an opportunity for expressing and listening to opinions and sentiments on the issue of war. More than that, it was an opportunity at an ominous moment in history for people to get out of the house and have some company to worry with.

“I’m 18 years old, and I think of other 18-year-olds, boys from Nebraska or Kansas, fighting for oil, and that seems absurd to me,” said Charlyjohn Gallay to the more than 50 people who packed the smoke-filled cafe.

Gallay’s sentiments were echoed in one way or another by each of the eight speakers who approached the open mike. Their comments riveted audience members, some of whom clasped their hands tensely while others made fists on the tables. Waiters leaned out from behind the cappuccino counter to hear.

Java Cafe was just one of many spots on the Westside where people gathered to hope, pray, or protest as the United Nations deadline for Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait approached, and passed.

A “D-Day Teach-in” rally at Santa Monica College, for example, attracted more than 500 students Tuesday, many carrying signs protesting the war that nearly everyone seemed to think had become inevitable. At Loyola Marymount University in Westchester, 1,000 students and faculty members attended a Mass for peace Tuesday night.

At UCLA, an estimated 500 students rallied for peace at midday Tuesday. And in front of Santa Monica City Hall, scores of students from Santa Monica High School, many of them cutting classes, held an impromptu protest.

The affair at the Java Cafe was organized by a peace group called the Stop the War Coffeehouse Committee.

Ricki Kline, a Toluca Lake resident and friend of the cafe’s owners, brought his family as an expression of solidarity with the speakers.

“My family demonstrated against the Korean War and the Vietnam War, and I’m here tonight so that 15 years down the line my children won’t have to do this,” Kline said, holding his daughter, Melina, 4, in his arms. “The federal government needs to see large numbers of people coming out against this conflict. Even the babies count. We must participate in the public rage over this tragedy.”

Although no one spoke publicly in favor of war, at least one audience member--a Navy reservist who said his construction battalion is to depart soon for the Persian Gulf--said quietly in an interview that he supports the U.S. military plan to stop aggression by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

“Saddam must be stopped,” said the reservist, asking that he not be named. “Economic sanctions won’t crush a leader who already has endured nine years of wartime conditions.

“I have friends in the Gulf who tell me that Saddam will have nuclear capability inside of two years. Let us fight him now before he gets that capability. If we don’t do it, Israel will. And then the situation will be way out of our hands.”

Still, the reservist said, he is apprehensive, and he questioned whether it was necessary for the United States to have to bear such a dominant role in the military confrontation.

The one scheduled speaker during the evening was Kate Harris, who formerly co-chaired the New Jewish Agenda, a national Jewish organization involved in issues of social and cultural change. She expressed dismay with the Bush Administration over the decision to send forces to the region.

“We are in the Gulf for two reasons,” Harris said emphatically. “One is oil. The other is jobs.”

Harris explained that Persian Gulf oil is such a fundamental part of the American economy that the government is willing to wage war over it. She also contended that U.S. involvement has been spurred on by the government’s need to provide American defense companies with international weapons contracts, and hence more American jobs.

“I question the legitimacy of these reasons,” Harris said. “I also question the flawed assumption that this will be a ‘quick and dirty’ war. That has just not been the experience of the United States. To destroy a country, you must destroy its infrastructure--hospitals, roads and railroads, for example. Even if the military could accomplish that, it still would not end a war. There would still be the rage of the Iraqi people to confront.”

Andrew Liberman, founder of the Coffeehouse Committee and organizer of the speak-in, agreed with Harris’ assessment. He said the United States would go to war in the Persian Gulf amid a storm of opposition at home.

“The Peace Movement has been left out of the debate for too long,” Liberman said. “The only alternatives we’ve seen are war now or war in six months. But we’re telling people that they have to read and talk about this with their friends. People need to raise their voices and send a message to our government.”

At the Santa Monica College teach-in, many people carried signs of protest. One group of students went a step further, stuffing an Army uniform to look like a soldier wearing a gas mask, then stuffing the effigy into a body bag.

“It gives you a sense of deja vu, “ said Rocky Young, 42, an administrator at the college.

And at the protest staged by the Santa Monica High School students, there was heard another echo, one that suggested that there might be some kinder, gentler aspects to the ‘90s after all.

It was a chant, slightly modified from days gone by:

“One, two, three, four.

We don’t want your stupid war.”