Making A Point

"It was important to make a point, Pakistan has made a point, and we now need to move on and go into a positive zone and try to conduct our relations.  We are trying to put this relationship, you know, in a positive zone, and I am quite sure that we will be successful in doing so."  Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar

Ah, the leaders of Pakistan are on the cusp of deciding to end the border blockade that denied NATO continuation of its supply routes through Pakistan to Afghanistan.  The result of a Pakistani hissy-fit over the November 26 American airstrike that happened to dispatch 24 Pakistani soldiers.  Who had themselves, from their camp just over the border, attacked combined NATO/Afghan troops on patrol.

Who then, obviously, responded to the attack, although and despite Pakistan denying that any of its troops had fired on anyone at any time.  The death of the Pakistani soldiers was simply the result of an unprovoked and vicious attack.  It can be questioned whether that incident precipitated Pakistani rage, or whether it was still smarting over the insult to its sovereignty when U.S. SEALS dispatched Osama bin Laden.

That furtive, secret action, where Pakistan was neither given pre-warning nor permission asked of it to enter its sovereign geography resulted in an international embarrassment that the country saw no way to explain other than to counter it with furiously unrestrained rage.  It was a rage shared by the populace as well as the politicians, the national army and the secret intelligence services.

The ongoing U.S. drone strikes that have so successfully targeted senior Taliban and al-Qaeda figures, decimating their numbers in a completely satisfactory manner, and ridding Pakistan of so many of its own political/social/religious extremists simply continues to aggravate their dissonant outrage.  Pakistan insists it is owed a formal apology. 

And then the border will be re-opened.

Meanwhile, please send money.  The state budget is soon to be effected, and the treasury looks awfully lean.  Keep those American billions coming.  Nothing like cash on an ongoing basis to smooth out the furious tides of belligerence between friends and partners in the 'war on terror'.