An e-mail from Iraqi Kurdistan:

Last night PUK’s anti-terror forces fired at a Change List support-rally. A number of people were wounded and were taken to the hospital. Later the same force stormed the hospital and kidnapped the 3 wounded individuals, and 10 other supporters in the hospital.

The force is led by Jalal Talabani’s son (Qubad Talabani’s elder brother). Kurdish journalists are talking about the episode on Facebook and Twitter. Lincoln Davis (D., Tenn.) and Joe Wilson (R., S.C.) lead the Kurdish caucus and have long parroted the official Kurdistan Regional Government line, even as abuses grow worse. It makes sense to be sympathetic to the Kurdish people, after the abuses they have suffered. But it is quite another to confuse that sympathy with blanket support to a regime willing to gun down unarmed protestors in the street. It will be interesting to see whether Davis and Wilson continue to lend their good names to an increasingly oppressive and abusive Kurdish leadership. Both Davis and Wilson risk ending up like Joseph Kennedy II, the former congressman who became a shill for Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez.