The attacks on Pakistani territory by NATO gunship helicopters have gone beyond what the Pakistan military is prepared to tolerate and rightly so, given that it is the job of the military to defend Pakistans borders not allow them to be violated at will by external powers. That is why the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Malik Amad, revealed the COAS would take this issue up at the next Tripartite meeting with his Afghan and NATO counterparts. Unfortunately this is not enough in fact if anything it is too little and too late. What needs to be done is to send a far stronger message that is easily understood by both the US, whose General Petraeus has already threatened sending US troops into Pakistan, and NATO. As a first step, the Pakistan military should ready itself to shooting down any NATO/US gunship helicopter that enters Pakistani territory. Also, it is now time the Pakistan civil and military leadership stopped being party to the drone attacks that are killing their own people. The PAF leadership had already let it be known that they had the technical capability to shoot down the drones and all that was needed was the political decision this should now be done. The abuse being inflicted on Pakistan by the US and NATO has to end now. It is an insult to this nation to get its people killed in the line of fighting the USs so-called war on terror and then to continuously be told to do more while our hostile eastern neighbour gets one military deal after another from the US and we are told to not utter a word against the threat that these deals pose to Pakistans security. It has been learnt that the CIA Chief, Panetta, is on his way to Islamabad to give us exactly this message while once again repeating the 'do more mantra to us But the time has come to alter course and steer us out of the quagmire of the US agenda in this region as it directly undermines our national interests. Unless the Pakistani civil and military leadership takes a clear position on the US/NATO threats by deeds, no one will believe them given the track record on the drones. Even more critical, unless this position is taken, Pakistan will see US troops entering on the ground, just as we have seen drones increase and the upping of the ante by NATO with its gunship intrusions into Pakistani territory something for which the UN Security Council has given no mandate to even ISAF. Senator Kerry declared that Pakistanis should not be ambivalent about the US; he should know that the Pakistani nation is not ambivalent at all about the US, only its leadership seems to display that weakness which the nation now hopes it will overcome.