Late last week, Pakistani "tribesmen" held protests against American bombings in Pakistan. Because yes, we have been taking the War on Terror into Pakistan quite a bit recently! The funny part of that being that Pakistan is in name our ally in the war on terror in both the Afghan flavor and in the general. But why are these "tribesmen" protesting—given that the Taliban has systematically destroyed or subsumed the tribal systems that ran the various rural regions of Pakistan? Long story short, the legitimate government of Pakistan and the de facto Taliban government of Pakistan have agreed on a cease-fire that keeps American money coming in and also keeps the Taliban from overrunning the official government. This will come to a head as we continue to bomb, as we just did today, northwest Pakistan.