Aren't we generous.? Stick some troops into the middle of civil unrest.

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is willing to send a small number of U.S. combat troops to Pakistan to help fight the insurgency there if Pakistani authorities ask for such help, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday.

"We remain ready, willing and able to assist the Pakistanis and to partner with them to provide additional training, to conduct joint operations, should they desire to do so," Gates told a news conference.

Gates said the Pakistani government has not requested any additional assistance in the weeks since al-Qaida and affiliated extremists have intensified their fighting inside Pakistan. And he stressed that the United States would respect the Pakistanis' judgment on the utility of American military assistance.

"We're not aware of any proposals that the Pakistanis have made to us at this point," he said. "This is clearly an evolving issue. And what we have tried to communicate to the Pakistanis and essentially what we are saying here is we are prepared to look at a range of cooperation with them in a number of different areas, but at this point it's their nickel, and we await proposals or suggestions from them.

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Yea I read this earlier and found it pathetic and not very sound judgement.

That's an area we don't need to be involved in, in any way. The more we interfere the more backlash we will get from it.

We can only hope that next Jan all this will change for the good.