Mali: 'No UK army boots' on the ground - Cameron

Good, here's hoping we follow that example.

Let's just hope that the PM doesn't try to argue that because there are no boots on the ground, this isn't really a military operation.

Good on the French for going in there and taking out the trash!

Yup. Could escalate though. The French don't want the Islamists on their doorstep (in Algeria). But the problmes abound. Like the Taliban, you're dealing with an insurgency that hides in teh population. The Mali defence forces are much more ill-prepared and cowardly than the Islamist insurgents--they've given up entire towns without a shot. The rest of Africa, despite promises of "Africanizing" the problem, will sit around with their thumbs up their assess, like they always do. And domestically, they've got a large, unintegrated Muslim population in France, who may get stirred up by this intervention. Although that's not necessarily a bad thing--the bad ones will show their spots. Time Magazine reports that aspiring jihadists are leaving France to train in Mali.

Still, I think, for teh French, actionw as called for. That will have blowback implicatiosn for the rest of NATO though.