Cato Institute
Policy Analysis
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Page 19
Or consider the example of India and Pakistan, which
recently traded heavy mortar and artillery fire along the
Kashmir border after their leaders held inconclusive talks
on the secessionist enclave.  The Indian part of Kashmir
is the country's only state with an Islamic majority, and
militants there want to break away or unite with Muslim
Pakistan.  Ninety-two people have been killed so far this
year, and nearly 20,000 people living close to the border
have shifted to safer towns.73   There have been calls to
strengthen the UN observers' group on both sides of the
Kashmir border, to remove Indian army pickets, and to
reduce the number of Indian troops in the Indian part of
Kashmir.  But Foreign Secretary K. Raghunath of India dis-
missed such proposals as "interference in our internal
affairs."74   Despite the obvious parallel to Belgrade's
position on Kosovo, the Clinton administration has accepted
India's claim that Kashmir is an internal matter.
Then there is the issue of the KLA reportedly receiv-
ing assistance (as did the Muslim-dominated regime in
Bosnia) from Iran.  Questions are now being raised as to
the activities of radical Islamic groups operating inside
Albania, particularly in the region around the town of
Tropoje, a known KLA staging area.75   In addition, there
are media reports that the recent U.S. embassy bombings in
Kenya and Tanzania may be connected to the U.S.-demanded
deportation of several members of an Islamic terrorist
cell in Albania who were tied to Saudi expatriate Osama
bin Laden, and who intended to fight alongside the KLA.76
That possible connection raises another contradiction in
the Clinton administration's Kosovo policy.  As Col. Harry
G. Summers (Ret.) points out,
One of the most disturbing aspects of the pres-
ent [terrorism] crisis is that it may have been
triggered by our own inept foreign policy in
Bosnia and Kosovo. There, beyond all common
sense, we find ourselves championing Muslim fac-
tions who draw support from the very Islamic
fundamentalist terrorist groups who are our mor-
tal enemies elsewhere.77
Enlarging NATO's Purview--Again
NATO intervention in Kosovo would also have troubling
military implications for the United States; it would com-
plete the process of transforming NATO from a defensive
alliance into an on-call police service.