PROUT Editor's note: The government of Iraq reminds us more and more of the goverenment of a Central American country such as Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, where the local dictator-government slaughtered thousands of protesting starving villagers and peasants trying to establish justice in their country. And behind those governments were the American CIA, aiding and abetting, providing weapons and even soldiers to keep the peasants in their place. Assassinations were rampant. The former ambassador to Honduras, Mr. John Negroponte, is now US ambassador to Iraq. He knows all the techniques, all the tortures, he is adept in assassination methods, in ways and means to suppress and oppress the popular resistance, in how to crush the common people! This past week two prominent Sunni clerics were assassinated in drive-by shootings as they left the mosque. It is a ruthless campaign by Allawi and the US to crush any rebellion, any dissent against US occupation and plunder of Iraq. The second tragic event to occur this week was the meeting in Cairo of all the Arab nations surrounding Iraq. These nations agreed to support the regime of CIA-propped and US military backed Allawi, despite knowing that he was installed in this position by the CIA, despite knowing that the "insurgents" are the Iraqi people desperately fighting for their freedom and their dignity, and despite knowing that the so-called democratic elections in January in Iraq will be a farce and only a propaganda show for Bush to demonstrate to the American populace his wild success in Iraq! Shame on those countries for supporting the cruel dictator called Allawi, and for supporting the continuing occupation of Iraq by imperialist US forces! Shame on the Arab countries for turning their backs on the sufferings of the civilians struggling to remove the foreign invaders from their country! For this betrayal of its own brothers and sisters, the Arab world will pay heavily!
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By Dahr Jamail
24 November, 2004
Inter Press Service
The prime minister is following in the footsteps of the last president. The rule of Ayad Allawi, the U.S. appointed interim prime minister of Iraq, is now more in the style of the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein than a leader of a supposedly democratic state.
