...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis....
strikes killed 24 Pak soldiers, but stopped short on Monday of threatening to break the troubled alliance altogether.
NATO and the United States had sought to limit the fallout of Saturday's attack as Pakistain shut vital supply routes to the 140,000 foreign troops serving in Afghanistan and ordered a review of its US alliance.
Washington has backed a full inquiry and sent its condolences, while NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Sunday voiced regret over the "tragic, unintended" killings, but did not issue a full apology.
In response Pakistain has dug in its heels, reacting furiously to what it called an "unprovoked" strike, worsening US-Pak relations already in crisis after the killing in May of the late Osama bin Laden
... who is now sometimes referred to as
Mister Bones...
north of Islamabad by US special forces.
In an interview with CNN, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani
... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ...
said incidents such as at the NATO cross-border attack further alienated the Pak masses, leaving his government isolated in its unpopular alliance with the US.
"Business as usual will not be there, therefore we have to have something bigger so that to satisfy my nation, the entire country," he said in English.
Asked whether the US-Pak alliance can continue, he replied: "That can continue on mutual respect and mutual interest", adding that both were currently lacking.
"If I can't protect the illusory sovereignty of my country how can we say it's a mutual respect and mutual interest?"
It remains unclear what happened at the dead of night in some of the most hostile terrain on Earth. Afghan and Western officials reportedly said the Paks opened fire first. Pakistain insists the attack was unprovoked.
NATO and Afghan forces "were fired on from a Mighty Pak Army base", a Western official told the Wall Street Journal. "It was a defensive action." An Afghan border police commander, speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered...
as officials have been told not to speak to media before an investigation is completed, said NATO troops hardly ever open fire unless they are attacked.
"To me it's almost clear that they (Isaf) came under fire from that area. Without that they would have not returned fire," he told AFP.
He said Taliban, Afghan cops as well Pak security forces have posts very close to each other due to the rugged, mountainous terrain.
"This is not true. They are making up excuses. And by the way, what are their losses, casualties?" Major General Athar Abbas
... who is The Very Model of a Modern Major General...
, Pakistain's chief military front man, wrote to AFP in a text message.
He later told Pak television channel Geo that 72 Pak soldiers have been killed and 250 maimed by fire from across the Afghan border over the last three years.
Asked about expressions of regret by NATO he said: "We do not accept it because such kind of attacks have been taking place in the past... Our leadership will decide about further reaction." British newspaper The Daily Telegraph on Monday quoted maimed survivors of the raid, who insisted they were victims of an unprovoked attack.
In retaliation, Islamabad has blocked NATO convoys from crossing into Afghanistan, ordered a review of its alliance with the US and is mulling whether to boycott a key conference on Afghanistan next month.