What kind of ally is Pakistan?
The world watched in horror last Friday as 90 members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community was slaughtered at prayer in Lahore Pakistan. Suicide attackers wearing bomb vests, wielding AK 47s and throwing hand grenades launched a brutal attack on the worshiping Ahmadis at prayer. This weekend the Ahmadis began burying this barrage of the dead. There remains more than 100 injured as well. It has long been known that our ally Pakistan does not grant equal protections for religious minorities under the law. The Ahmadis have borne the brunt of this legal discrimination which as bolstered these extremist attackers in their resolve. In 2004 then US president George Bush named Pakistan a major ally in the war on terror. President Obama has continued this relationship. Yet we find that Pakistan overtly harbours and shrouds terrorists. It supports a legal framework that enshrines discrimination on the basis of religion. This framework provides taliban groups like the one that launched the attack on
