US artists oppose war on terror

Signatory Ed Asner is known for espousing liberal causes

The organiser of an artists' petition against the US Government's "war on terror" has said some people were afraid to add their signatures.

The Not In Our Name statement calls on the people of the US "to resist the policies and overall political direction that have emerged since 11 September".

It was signed by actors Ed Asner and Ossie Davis, musicians Laurie Anderson and Mos Def, writers Alice Walker, Russell Banks and Grace Paley, and academics Gloria Steinem and Edward Said, among others.

It was released on the internet on 2 June.

But organiser Jeremy Pikser, who wrote the screen play of the Warren Beatty film Bulworth, told the Guardian newspaper on Thursday some people held back from signing the petition.

Dissent

He said they would not sign "because they think it might jeopardise other things they're involved in".

The statement comes from a coalition called The Artists' Network of Refuse And Resist.

Its website names figures who did not sign the 2 June statement, including Susan Sontag, Danny Glover, Angelina Jolie and Robert Altman.

Mr Pikser said the world believed there was no US dissent to the bombing of Afghanistan and the plans for a war against Iraq.

'Blank cheque'

The response of the US Government to the 11 September attacks, says the statement, poses "grave dangers to the people of the world".

The signatories say they "mourned the thousands of innocent dead and shook our heads at the terrible scenes of carnage" of the attacks but are protesting at the "blank cheque" the events have given the US Government.

"In our name, the Bush administration, with near unanimity from Congress, not only attacked Afghanistan but arrogated to itself and its allies the right to rain down military force anywhere and anytime," it reads.