Update around 3 PM:

Robert Gates and President Bush have been busy bees: Our forces just seized the Iranian consulate in Northern Iraq

and have reportedly "kidnapped" Iranian civilians/workers in this audacious raid.

My dear friend Jean-Marc Lofficier also sent me

this link to the Daily Kos thread on the raid,

adding: "Obviously looking to manufacture a casus belli. Shitstorm's coming, I tell ya."

Via news reports on the radio (en route moving another load from Marlboro), I hear that both American and Kurdish military forces -- our allies! -- had guns cocked and aimed at one another, and US troops waited in this tension a full hour before "some" were airlifted out via helicopters.

Coming on the heels of Monday's Somalia air raid and last night's speech, this is incredibly fucking dangerous shit going down. This is madness -- we are attacking the few allies we have left! Flashing on images of scorpions, ant hills and burning straw (see The Wild Bunch), I feel like we're collectively plunging down the rabbit hole...