The Rev Terry Jones, the American pastor who said he would burn the Holy Quran for the 2010 anniversary of the falling of the World Trade Centre, but who was dissuaded from going ahead after a storm of protest had made many, including US President Barack Obama, contact him, went ahead and fulfilled his threat on Monday. Reverend Jones revived memories of the Nazi book burnings by his action, apart from the aspect of deliberate blasphemy. He also managed to revive more ancient memories with the mock trial that was conducted before finding the Holy Book 'guilty and having it lit by fellow pastor Wayne Sapp, more ancient memories, of medieval trials of inanimate objects or dumb animals, were revived. This was an indication of the abysmal intellectual level of Reverend Jones, whose act seemed of a piece with the other acts of blasphemy which have proliferated in the Western world ever since the beginning of the so-called war on terror, which is increasingly becoming a war against Muslims. The most prominent example was the publication of blasphemous cartoons by Denmarks Jyllands Posten, in which freedom of expression was portrayed as an issue. The Danish cartoons provoked widespread protests throughout the Muslim world, and now that the Muslim world has seen that unbelievers will not desist, and now that it has seen the consequences not just of US allies illegally occupying Palestine and Kashmir, but of the USA directly occupying Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the ferment in the Arab world, it is unlikely to miss out on the desecration. However, the taking place of this desecration at this time probably does not exclude the awareness that the West is presently invading Libya in the cover of imposing a no-fly zone, and would do anything to distract attention from the humanitarian calamity that its ally is imposing in Bahrain. This is evidence enough that the West would stick at nothing to make Muslims accept the blasphemy that they protest so violently. The Pakistan government should not take this blasphemy lying down. Not only has it assisted in the war on terror with the lives of its soldiers as well as other citizens, it has also let the USA get away with the recent Raymond Davis case. It should expect the US government to put pressure on Reverend Jones again to stop him from engaging in this desecration, as it did the last time. Now that Pakistan has seen that the USA will prefer the desecration of its most sacred symbols, to allow an obscure Florida pastor his shot at self-projection, it should break the alliance which it seems to value above even the lives of its citizens.