The strappado and the ballot-box. posted by Richard Seymour

Well, well. Take a look at this beauty from last month:

If the referendum on Iraq's draft constitution next month is conducted fairly, it now appears very likely that the document will be defeated by a two-thirds majority in the three Sunni-dominated provinces of Anbar, Salahadeen and Nineveh, plunging Iraq into a new political crisis.

However, one way such a defeat could be averted is by massive vote fraud in the key province of Nineveh. According to an account provided by the US liaison with the local election commission, supported by physical evidence collected by the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI), Kurdish officials in Nineveh province tried to carry out just such a ballot-stuffing scheme in last January's election.

As this Iraqi feminist points out, this constitution is already alienating many and laying the ground for an intensified civil war which, she says, has already broken out.

Meanwhile, new revelations emerge that torture is much more ubiquitous in Iraq than is commonly supposed:

"It's all over Iraq," Lagouranis told FRONTLINE. "The infantry units are torturing people in their homes. They would smash people's feet with the back of an axhead. They would break bones, ribs. That was serious stuff."

I get the feeling that this will become a more common type of practise in the New Iraq as the weeks and months wear on.