Sheryl Crow, Jay-Z, Missy Elliott Join Multi-Artist Antiwar Coalition

Thu, Feb 27, 2003

Sheryl Crow, Jay-Z, and Missy Elliott are just some of the many artists who have come together in a new group called Musicians United To Win Without War.



Russell Simmons and Dr. Benjamin Chavis, president of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, as well as Roseanne Cash, Lou Reed, and David Byrne were on hand at a press conference at the Warwick Hotel in midtown Manhattan on Thursday (February 27) to announce the formation of the group.

The group comprises musical artists from numerous genres, and it will join a coalition of 32 organizations such as the National Council Of Churches, MoveOn.org, the NAACP, NOW, the Sierra Club, and Artists United To Win Without War, all of which support tough United Nations inspections to disarm Saddam Hussein instead of an invasion and occupation of Iraq.

During the press conference, Simmons said that although the artists were just beginning to mobilize, they could have a big impact. "Everybody from gangsta rappers like 50 Cent to Puffy to Jay-Z, all these guys... we know what they can do," Simmons said. "I mean, Puffy is certainly more well-liked and well-known across the world than George Bush. Jay-Z is much more liked and well-known across the world than Colin Powell, so we know they have big voices and we know people pay attention. And young people certainly pay attention, and they have been the ones that have been silent. But we're just going to work now and I promise you that they're going to wake up."

Crow has been very outspoken about her feelings about a potential war with Iraq. She wore a peace sign necklace, and had the words "NO WAR" on her guitar strap during her Grammy performance earlier in the week. "I think everybody knows what the issue is," Crow said backstage at the Grammys. "Nobody wants to rush into a war. Everybody thinks we should be talking about peace--that is the objective--and it doesn't feel good when we get called a focus group. We're bigger than that."

Some of the other artists involved in the coalition include Dave Matthews, Tweet, Busta Rhymes, Natalie Imbruglia, Fat Joe, Eric Benet, Kandi Burruss, Busta Rhymes, Blu Cantrell, Capone-N-Noreaga, Floetry, Jagged Edge, K-Ci, JoJo, Lil' Mo, Nas, OutKast, Musiq, Raphael Saadiq, and Mos Def. -- Chiam Chad Dougatz, Jason Gelman, and Yves Erwin Salomon.

Has anyone heard from Zack De La Rocha? I haven't heard anything from him regarding 911, Afghanistan, Iraq...

Anyone have any info?

I heard he joined Special Forces so he could kick some Al Qaida butt.

But now we're all in trouble when LOU REED comes out against the war. Maybe Zach should kick HIS ass instead.

I think they made Zach a colonel, because he was such a bad ass.

Yeah, this is the "Who's Who of Music" LMFAO ! Like I give a $#@! what they have to say. I can say with all honesty I have never nor will I ever listen to 99% of these "Artist". This makes me laugh.

awwwwwwwwwwwwwow those mother f~~#*rs never invited me. i'm the best, watch me moonwalk awwwwwwwwwwow. hey scotty let's climb a tree.

yo mother f****rs i'm back from my moonwalk. bush admirer you talk alot of sence. us and the british are one cool mother f****rs, let's go for some ice cream.

Anybody up for a little butt-fucking and speed?

Where'd my face go?

So what if Lou Reed is a fucking fag? Looks like even the buttfuckers have the riht idea on this one..

Here. take two of these and tie the bag

around your head.

Clinton got a blow job from Monica,

Bush fucked the rest of the country up the ass.

The artists from System of a Down came out against war at the L.A. rally, Beastie boys are buddhists, Ozzy, who the president saluted, is known to be anti war ie: "War Pigs" is one of his classics right? Um, can I ask you which artists came out for the war? Besides, what's his name the white trash comedian that no one remembers who works for the U.S.O. because his show was cancelled. You wanna debate it team U.S.A. you had better not cite the Dixie Chicks or Brittany because all those people are all sellouts too. Call Metallica, see what they have to say, no fuck you, call the Dead Kennedy's. I hope Jello Biafra has five minutes with you on the phone. KRS One is against war, he is known as a father figure in Hip Hop, Chuck D, Paul McCartney, Shakira for god's sake! Name just a few on your side, and let us laugh when all you probably find is Ted Nugent, I bet he's even against this war.

Lou Reed is a fucking genius!!!!

OK musicians are you aware of this?



Philippine terrorists claim link to Iraq

By Marc Lerner

THE WASHINGTON TIMES



CEBU, Philippines — Islamist terrorists in the southern Philippines who have killed two American hostages in recent years say they are receiving money from Iraqis close to President Saddam Hussein

Hamsiraji Sali, a local commander of the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf on the remote southern island of Basilan, says he is getting nearly ,000 a year from supporters in Iraq.

"It's so we would have something to spend on chemicals for bomb-making and for the movement of our people," Sali told a reporter this week, renewing earlier claims of support from Iraq.

The payments, while small, provide additional evidence of a link between Iraq and the Abu Sayyaf — a group with long-standing ties to al Qaeda and its global terror network.

The boast of an Iraqi connection was taken seriously after the expulsion of an Iraqi diplomat from Manila last week amid charges he had been in contact with the Abu Sayyaf by telephone.

"Things like this are very difficult to pin down," said a Manila-based Western diplomat who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "But it certainly wouldn't surprise me."

Iraqi diplomat Husham Hussein was expelled after Philippine officials discovered that he had received a telephone call from an Abu Sayyaf member linked to the Oct. 2 bombing in the southern port city of Zamboanga that killed one American serviceman and badly wounded another.

The soldiers were part of a joint training exercise intended to bolster the Philippine military's ability to hunt down the terrorists.

A new contingent of 1,700 U.S. troops began arriving in the southern Philippines last month, with plans to put them into combat alongside their Philippine counterparts in the fight against the Abu Sayyaf.

That operation is on hold as questions have arisen about whether U.S. participation in combat would violate provisions of the Philippine Constitution.

The Abu Sayyaf was founded more than a decade ago with help from Jamal Mohammad Khalifa, a brother-in-law of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Several of its members have received explosives training from Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York who is now in prison.

Sali, who participated in the 2001 hostage seizure from a dive resort that led to the deaths of two Americans, had claimed support from the Middle East.

Reports of links between Middle Eastern terrorists and the Abu Sayyaf, which means "bearer of the sword" in Arabic, have been rife since the group's founding in the late 1980s by Abdurajak Janjalani, born to a Muslim father and Christian mother on Basilan.

Janjalani, who was killed in a firefight five years ago, studied in Libya and Saudi Arabia and later fought in Afghanistan alongside men who today form the core of bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

Joel Guillo, a hospital worker held hostage for six months by the Abu Sayyaf, said he witnessed the visits by Arab terrorists to the camps. Sali, the Abu Sayyaf commander, said several of those visitors were Iraqis.

Mr. Guillo was held along with Guillermo Sobero, an American tourist, and Gracia and Martin Burnham, American missionaries who were taken from a dive resort May 27, 2001.

Mr. Sobero was beheaded the following month, and Mr. Burnham was killed last year by his captors during a military rescue operation that freed his wife.

Sali told a reporter for the Philippine Daily Inquirer that weapons for the Abu Sayyaf were being provided by unnamed contacts in the Middle East.

The weapons, he said, were transshipped through Cambodia and Vietnam, then to Malaysia and on to the southern Philippines.

That the Abu Sayyaf needed outside aid baffled some observers who pointed out that the terrorists received a windfall after their April 23, 2000, kidnapping of 21 persons — eight Europeans, two South Africans, nine Malaysians and two Filipinos — from a resort in neighboring Malaysia.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who has long meddled in Philippine affairs, gave the Abu Sayyaf million in ransom money — called "development aid" — to release the hostages.

Much of the money reportedly was siphoned off by middlemen who helped negotiate the hostage release. The remainder was squandered by the Abu Sayyaf on speedboats and arms, leaving ragtag units like Sali's destitute.

While estimates of the number of full-time committed Abu Sayyaf guerrillas vary, the Philippine military puts their strength at about 200, down from more than 1,000 at the height of their kidnapping sprees. Many of those fighters have retreated from Basilan to Jolo, an island farther south where U.S. troops were to go into combat.

The terrorist himself actually admits a conection between al quaeda and Sadam? that and sadam comits an act of war against the phillipeans of all places.

OK musicians are you aware of this?



Philippine terrorists claim link to Iraq

By Marc Lerner

THE WASHINGTON TIMES



CEBU, Philippines — Islamist terrorists in the southern Philippines who have killed two American hostages in recent years say they are receiving money from Iraqis close to President Saddam Hussein

Hamsiraji Sali, a local commander of the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf on the remote southern island of Basilan, says he is getting nearly ,000 a year from supporters in Iraq.

"It's so we would have something to spend on chemicals for bomb-making and for the movement of our people," Sali told a reporter this week, renewing earlier claims of support from Iraq.

The payments, while small, provide additional evidence of a link between Iraq and the Abu Sayyaf — a group with long-standing ties to al Qaeda and its global terror network.

The boast of an Iraqi connection was taken seriously after the expulsion of an Iraqi diplomat from Manila last week amid charges he had been in contact with the Abu Sayyaf by telephone.

"Things like this are very difficult to pin down," said a Manila-based Western diplomat who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "But it certainly wouldn't surprise me."

Iraqi diplomat Husham Hussein was expelled after Philippine officials discovered that he had received a telephone call from an Abu Sayyaf member linked to the Oct. 2 bombing in the southern port city of Zamboanga that killed one American serviceman and badly wounded another.

The soldiers were part of a joint training exercise intended to bolster the Philippine military's ability to hunt down the terrorists.

A new contingent of 1,700 U.S. troops began arriving in the southern Philippines last month, with plans to put them into combat alongside their Philippine counterparts in the fight against the Abu Sayyaf.

That operation is on hold as questions have arisen about whether U.S. participation in combat would violate provisions of the Philippine Constitution.

The Abu Sayyaf was founded more than a decade ago with help from Jamal Mohammad Khalifa, a brother-in-law of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Several of its members have received explosives training from Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York who is now in prison.

Sali, who participated in the 2001 hostage seizure from a dive resort that led to the deaths of two Americans, had claimed support from the Middle East.

Reports of links between Middle Eastern terrorists and the Abu Sayyaf, which means "bearer of the sword" in Arabic, have been rife since the group's founding in the late 1980s by Abdurajak Janjalani, born to a Muslim father and Christian mother on Basilan.

Janjalani, who was killed in a firefight five years ago, studied in Libya and Saudi Arabia and later fought in Afghanistan alongside men who today form the core of bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

Joel Guillo, a hospital worker held hostage for six months by the Abu Sayyaf, said he witnessed the visits by Arab terrorists to the camps. Sali, the Abu Sayyaf commander, said several of those visitors were Iraqis.

Mr. Guillo was held along with Guillermo Sobero, an American tourist, and Gracia and Martin Burnham, American missionaries who were taken from a dive resort May 27, 2001.

Mr. Sobero was beheaded the following month, and Mr. Burnham was killed last year by his captors during a military rescue operation that freed his wife.

Sali told a reporter for the Philippine Daily Inquirer that weapons for the Abu Sayyaf were being provided by unnamed contacts in the Middle East.

The weapons, he said, were transshipped through Cambodia and Vietnam, then to Malaysia and on to the southern Philippines.

That the Abu Sayyaf needed outside aid baffled some observers who pointed out that the terrorists received a windfall after their April 23, 2000, kidnapping of 21 persons — eight Europeans, two South Africans, nine Malaysians and two Filipinos — from a resort in neighboring Malaysia.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who has long meddled in Philippine affairs, gave the Abu Sayyaf million in ransom money — called "development aid" — to release the hostages.

Much of the money reportedly was siphoned off by middlemen who helped negotiate the hostage release. The remainder was squandered by the Abu Sayyaf on speedboats and arms, leaving ragtag units like Sali's destitute.

While estimates of the number of full-time committed Abu Sayyaf guerrillas vary, the Philippine military puts their strength at about 200, down from more than 1,000 at the height of their kidnapping sprees. Many of those fighters have retreated from Basilan to Jolo, an island farther south where U.S. troops were to go into combat.

The terrorist himself actually admits a conection between al quaeda and Sadam? that and sadam comits an act of war against the phillipeans of all places.

Wow

spookey boo?

And this just shows more people care about the pop-culture events and voices in this world than they care about the WORLD events and voices. So these artists use their fame and assume, "hey, I'm famous, so I'll speak out against the war". Some of them may just want their name back in the spotlight. Where were they when we sent troops to yugoslavia? We are still there, after much death and destruction. Where were they? When they have the answers to these questions, I'll listen. What can we do to stabilize the middle east? What can we do to keep our country from being attacked again? If we don't police the world, who else will step up to do it? As war kills people, so does hunger and disease? Why don't these people spend their time and money on curing those situations? Think I'll buy a CD from these artists, just to light them on fire. Money well spent.

blackops

D&C

Oh Please.... What country are you guys living on??? Its not America for sure.... How LONG does it take in your eyes to make things right??? I say 12 yrs is LONG enough!!! Its time to take control & help these people & our selves before it is too late, What would you all say then???? 9-11 should have been enough.......... I hate war too but enough is enough..... STOP BEING TRAITORS !!

GO CHECK OUT ON THE CHARLIE DANIELS WEB SITE HIS COMMENTS........ NOW THATS A TRUE AMERICAN!!!!!!! NOT LIKE YOU TRAITORS*

Shut the hell up, bitch!

If you would remove your blinders and take a look at the actual evidence you might understand why there are an awful lot of people who oppose this war who support this country.

How many years did you spend in uniform Bitch?

WAKE UP FOOLS..BEFORE YOUR FRIED

What does it work for?

What makes this War of Conquest Justified?

What are the alternatives?

Have you even considered alternatives.

Before we go killing a couple HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE we had better God Damned well have a sufficient and immediate danger.

Iraq poses NO THREAT to the United States. I defy you to prove otherwise.

Diogenes and Sheepdog, while I may agree with some of your political views, using the word "bitch" is highly offensive to women. Is this how you really feel?

The mossad blows chunks and eats them again.

MMM sounds good doesn't it?

Did I mention

How much I like

nude and hairless

chinese boys

Cause I do.

You fucking bitch

If someone calls me, and those who I share views with, a traitor for standing up for what I believe to be right, and does nothing to harm this country they have lost entitlement to respectful treatment. I do not HATE anyone, but I do occaisionally run into an asshole who provides the temptation (not you).

Most of those who tempt my wrath are Jews and fags. Because I hate them. Does this hat cover my bald spot?

Yep, just like every OTHER time, you're MORONS. As you can probably tell from the other comments on this rediculous site, your opinions against the government of this country are ignorant. Like you have some degree of foreign policy savvy? Like you might actually UNDERSTAND diplomacy. As if you have a clue about making a committment and sticking to it. Heck, from where I sit, not one of you are successful in a relationship for more than a year or until the next hot-looking number passes by. Do us all a favor - Understand that in the great scheme of things, you're not THAT important. Stick to playing your guitar or pretending in a movie someplace. The REST of us will simply vote with our feet. All together now, and not too loud: "You want fries with that....?"

Yep, just like every OTHER time, you're MORONS. As you can probably tell from the other comments on this rediculous site, your opinions against the government of this country are ignorant. Like you have some degree of foreign policy savvy? Like you might actually UNDERSTAND diplomacy. As if you have a clue about making a committment and sticking to it. Heck, from where I sit, not one of you are successful in a relationship for more than a year or until the next hot-looking number passes by. Do us all a favor - Understand that in the great scheme of things, you're not THAT important. Stick to playing your guitar or pretending in a movie someplace. The REST of us will simply vote with our feet. All together now, and not too loud: "You want fries with that....?"

Thank you God for your advice.