Dec. 16, 2014, began as a normal school day for hundreds of children at the Army Public School in Peshawar, Pakistan. They were settled into their classes. Some students paid rapt attention to their teachers; others daydreamed or risked their teachers’ ires by quietly goofing off. Gunshots shattered the calm, though, and the day soon became Pakistan’s equivalent of the Beslan school siege. Over the next eight hours, terrorists affiliated with Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan went from room to room, systematically gunning down children who were cowering under desks and the dead bodies of their peers and teachers. More than 150 people, mostly children, died, and an additional 100 were injured.

When the United States castigates Pakistan for two-faced behavior with regard to terrorism, Pakistani officials often respond with umbrage: After all, Pakistan is also a victim of terrorism, and hundreds of Pakistani soldiers and an even greater number of civilians have lost their lives in the fight against militancy. That is all true. It has now been 11 years, for example, since Pakistani politicians sought compromise with the Pakistani Taliban only to be betrayed by the militant group. And the Army Public School massacre confirmed the toll ordinary civilians have paid.