France starts talks on U.N. peacekeepers for Mali

I feel sorry for the regular Mali folk, after the French leave, my guess the Muslim terrorists will go on witch hunts after anybody and everybody who publicly supported the French intervention, right??

Hopefully it'll be more than a peacekeeping force, and more a stabilisation force with the mandate to fire back when necessary, and to protect the civilian population from the Islamists. We've seen what happens when UN peacekeepers are simply based in compounds... they become targets or ignored and rolled over (like the Irish UN troops who were pushed aside by the Israelis when they invaded Lebanon).

What the UN need to do is send in a heavily armed force with a robust mandate. It's about time they had teeth.