Stephen Harper's "Secret Mission"

So, Stephen Harper is going on Secret Trips Abroad(tm), which turns out to be a rally the troops (and hopefully Canada) trip to Afghanistan.

In a move that has the rotting corpse odour of Karl "Turdblossom" Rove's Whitehouse spin-doctoring, the Conservative leader has taken the approach that questioning our involvement in Afghanistan is undermining our troops. In short, Harper is emulating George Bush in this - "don't question me, I know better than you do".

As it happens, I actually think that Canada's involvement in Afghanistan is at least partially valid (we did, after all, help break the place in 2001). Where there is a reasonable point of debate is whether or not Afghanistan is sliding into a cycle of tribal strife. If that is the case, there is good reason to debate whether it is time to be attempting to "bring peace" to an area which is still sorting out its own internal power structures.

More cynically, I think that Harper's trip to Afghanistan has more to do with Michael Wilson being installed as Ambassador in Washington. Harper is busy trying to suck up to the imploding Bush administration. With Bush working to justify invading Iran, and disable the UN by opposing reforms to the Human Rights Council, the only reason I can see for Harper trying to cuddle up with this administration is pure ideology.