Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird stated emphatically, "Let me be clear that Canada is not contemplating a military mission in Mali." Fanatical Islamists had gained a stronghold, declared an independent state founded on Shariah law and begun destroying remnants of an over thousand year-old civilization while terrorizing the local population in the name of Islam.

What happens now that a weary world is pulling up its military stakes in Afghanistan? Some worry that the gains women have made will be traded for a so-called peace with the fundamentalists. Don't believe it -- the women are poised to yank this primitive place into the 21st century. They are the reformers and they won't go home again.