One can, perhaps, ignore the politicians tendency to say things that defy the logic of reality, but there was no apparent compulsion for the Army Chief to fall prey to that weakness. For General Kayani to vow to protect the lives and property of tribesmen sounded rather odd, especially when the CIA had killed eight of them with missiles shot by its drones at Angoor Adda in South Waziristan a day earlier. He made this statement while addressing a ceremony held to inaugurate a road link between North Waziristan and Afghanistan on Thursday. It is also noteworthy that this attack completely disregards General Kayanis own strong protest against a similar incident at Datta Khel last month that had massacred more than 40 innocent tribesmen. While the Datta Khel attack took place soon after the government had succumbed to the US pressure to release the killer CIA contractor Raymond Davis, Angoor Adda became a drone victim as ISI Chief General Pasha had conducted talks with CIA Director Panetta. The timings of these attacks are no coincidence; the US administration wants the government and the people of Pakistan to know that it has no intention of keeping the pilot-less plane off their skies. In fact, responsible government officials in Washington have already publicly made this point. In the face of US inflexibility on this provocative issue, mere demarche of the Foreign Secretary with the American Ambassador would not work. Islamabad is left with no other option but to devise its own response to prevent this blatant outrage on its territorial sovereignty and the best course would seem to be to shoot these flying machines down. At the same time, Pakistan should end its cooperation with the US on the so-called war on terror. Pakistan had tried to convince the US policymakers umpteen times that the indiscriminate deaths caused by these missile attacks generate greater enmity against their government and makes it easier for the militant networks to recruit fresh suicide bombers, a development that is dangerous both for Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Foreign Office spokesperson has rightly stressed that the drone hits have become the core irritant in US-Pak ties. The main opposition party, the PML-N, staged a walkout from the National Assembly, and one reason was to express its anger at the resumption of drone attacks. Chairman PPP-S Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao also hit out at these attacks and the government for failing to exercise its writ in areas facing security issues. The Americans needs to understand that the pervasive resentment among the Pakistani public against this gross violation of our sovereignty and deaths of our citizens has even compelled Islamabad to lodge protests with Washington. It is in their own interest to wind up this programme of bombing forthwith.