Aljazeera and the Iraqi Constitution Election

In the Arabic world, Aljazeera is a primary and influential news organization. You will note that I did not use the adjective “objective” in the news organization’s description. Here’s an example of Aljazeera’s “objective reporting.”

The U.S. administration has managed to shove the rejected draft charter down the throats of the Iraqi people. The administration’s illegal tactics have been aided by the deliberate failure of the U.S media to investigate Iraq’s recent fraudulent elections. The evidence that this referendum was most certain to be rejected by the Iraqi people is abundant, but the United Nations and the media have chosen to ignore it

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In one opening paragraph, Aljazeera manages to condemn the U.S. government, the U.S. media and the U.N. Aljazeera must have been asleep at the switch because it forgot to include it’s arch enemy, Israel. The headline of the Aljazeera article is, “Shoving the draft charter down the throats of the Iraqis.”

Shoved down the throat indeed; 63% of Iraq's voters, 9.8 million people, voted 78.5% in favor of the new constitution and 21% against. Not surprisingly, the vote was primarily down religious lines. The yes votes came from Shiite controlled areas and the no votes from the Sunni controlled areas.

Aljazeera writes,

Although the U.S. media has attempted to portray Iraqis’ views of the draft charter as a sharp dichotomous split between Shiites and Kurds on the one hand and Sunni Arabs on the other, the reality is quite different. In fact, people from nearly all major ethnic and religious groups from throughout Iraq have demonstrated widespread opposition to the U.S.-supported draft charter.

I am wondering how it is that the U.S. actually accomplished this shoving down the throats. We must have forced the Iraqis to vote in the affirmative at gun point. An LA Times article included a graphic the Iraqi geographic voting patterns.