Perception:
-- Kashmir is a 'disputed' region
Reality:
-- The state of Jammu and Kashmir acceded to India according to the structure set up for the partition of India, after British rule ended. All other states and territories ruled by Britain acceded to either India or Pakistan in accordance with this structure - Jammu and Kashmir was no exception. The 'dispute' started when Pakistan invaded the state in a bid to negate the lawful accession. The UN resolutions on Kashmir (which Pakistan cites ad nauseum), first of all ask Pakistan to vacate its aggression and to help establish fair and equitable conditions in the state (KIN legal documents library). Pakistan not only never vacated its aggression and occupation of portions of the state, it expelled nearly all Hindus living on the territory under its control, and has encouraged the ethnic cleansing of Hindus, especially Kashmiri Pandits, from the Indian portion of Jammu and Kashmir. These malicious practices by Pakistan have rendered the UN resolutions regarding Kashmir null, void and meaningless five decades later (Kashmir Chronicle Vol. 1, Nos. 1, 2, 4 and 5). The only 'dispute' in Kashmir now centers around the continued support of Pakistan for subversion, terrorism and ethnic cleansing in the region. 

Perception:
-- Pakistan only provides political and diplomatic support to terrorists in Kashmir.
Reality:
-- A mountain of evidence points to the contrary. Any doubts in international circles should have been removed when the US Tomahawk missiles fired in August ended up killing mostly Pakistani terrorist trainees in Afghanistan, just across the Pakistani border. These trainees were headed to the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir to continue a decade old campaign of subversion and terrorism- a goal laid out by the late Pakistani President Zia-ul-Haq in 1988 as part of his infamous Operation Topac speech.
-- In the weeks following the missile attacks, the mask on the deadly face of Pakistani terrorism has been peeled away further by the threats of two dreaded Islamic terrorist organizations issued against the US. The Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (a new name for the Harkat-ul-Ansar) chief, Fazl-ur-Rehman Khalil, speaking openly to reporters in Islamabad threatened to retaliate against US interests (Excite.com, Aug. 22, 1998). His organization also issued a statement to Reuters that threatened Americans and Jews with destruction (Deccan Chronicle, Aug. 23, 1998). Not to be left behind, the chief of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, Hafiz Mohammad Syed, issued a threat against President Clinton if he dared to visit Pakistan (Associated Press, Sept. 5, 1998). This threat, again, was issued in an open news conference in Karachi. How is it that the heads of two deadly international terrorist groups were able to openly and freely issue threats against the US from the political and financial capitals of Pakistan? Clearly these groups are able to operate fearlessly in that country and have some level of support or protection from the official Pakistani machinery.
-- A few weeks ago the Indian government held an exhibition of a vast arsenal of Pakistani-supplied arms and ammunition captured from terrorists in Kashmir. The arsenal is enough to arm a whole army, and includes anti-aircraft guns (Deccan Chronicle, July 20,1998).
-- An Indian government study found that 900 out of 2300 terrorists operating in Jammu and Kashmir were foreign merceneries, many of them from Pakistan and Afghanistan. The dominant outfits operating in the state were Harkat-ul-Ansar (also known as Harkat-ul-Mujahideen), Hizbul-Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Toiba. The study also listed 21 terrorist training camps in Afghanistan (some of which were hit by US missiles last month), 47 in Pakistan, and 39 in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, as those being used to wage the proxy war in Jammu and Kashmir (Rediff.com, Aug. 31, 1998).
-- Recently captured Pakistani terrorists have revealed that Pakistani agencies are now forcing local youths in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir into terrorist training and then sending them across the Line of Control into India (Indian Express, Sept. 12, 1998).
-- While Pakistan has very little money left to pay off its international debts (New York Times, Aug. 30, 1998), it is spending much of its resources on deadly activities in neighboring countries. Its economy is near collapse while it pumps arms, ammunition and fundamentalist terror into Afghanistan and India. This situation has finally forced it to compromise on its stand on nuclear weapons. However, its nefarious activities in the realm of terrorism continue unchecked. While Pakistani leaders advise their citizens to 'eat grass if they have to', much of its resources end up in terrorist training camps (as much as 70% of its budget is used up to finance its military and its growing debt).
-- Any reader still in doubt is pointed to Yossef Bodansky's research articles for the US Congress Task Force on Terrorism. His analysis of the Pakistan-Afghanistan nexus in pan-global Islamic terrorism and its crucial role in the Kashmir tragedy is as valid and relevant now as it was a couple of years ago when he wrote the articles.

Perception:
-- Tensions between India and Pakistan were further heightened during the artillery exchanges last month.
Reality:
-- These exchanges are nothing new, and they flare up during each summer. The snow melts and the mountainous Line of Control becomes passable for the Pakistani terrorist trainees to infiltrate into the Indian portion of Kashmir. Of course the infiltrators need cover, which is provided by a surge in Pakistani firing at Indian positions. While the Indian military is busy responding to the firing and shelling, and getting civilians out of harm's way, the terrorists sneak through and move on to their respective assignments. India has nothing to gain from this exchange - no territory is gained or lost by either side. On the other hand, the exchanges facilitate the efflux of terrorists from Pakistan into India.

 Perception:
-- Cancer can be cured with a local biopsy

Reality:
-- Global terrorism, extremism, fundamentalism and intolerance are cancers that are eating away at freedom, democracy, pluralism, secularism and humanity itself all across the world. As in the case of a spreading cancer, one can not do local surgery, remove a small portion, and hope that the other tumors will go away if ignored. Attacking a few terrorist camps in Afghanistan while turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to the vast terrorist machinery based in Pakistan will not bring about an early end to the global war against terrorism.
-- In early 1993, the US State Department took a step in the right direction by putting Pakistan on a watch list of terrorist countries. Later that year, however, the State Department determined that Pakistan 'had ... ended official support for terrorists in India'. Whatever evidence was used to come to that determination should have been overriden by the State Department's 1994 report that cited credible reports of continuing official Pakistani support for terrorism in India (Barbara Leitch LePoer, Congressional Research Service). Representative Bill McCollum reported to the US Congress in 1994 that (after being taken off the terrorist watch list) '...Pakistan never stopped its aid to the terrorists in Kashmir'.
-- Pakistani support for terrorism in Kashmir has directly led to the killings of thousands of civilians, and to the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits, thus giving it the dubious distinction of being one of the foremost supporters of international terrorism in recent years (Kashmir Chronicle, Vol. 1, No. 5). The US State Department continues to ignore the evidence and refuses to even put Pakistan back on the watch list of terrorist countries. The United States itself bore the brunt of one arm of the Pakistan-Afghanistan terrorist machinery during the embassy bombings in August of this year, and has been a victim of this machinery in the World Trade Center bombing and the killings of US citizens in Pakistan. Until and unless the US foreign policy team decides to take on the cancer of international terrorism in its totality, the entire world will be under a constant and increasing threat from global terrorism.