Harper visits Afghanistan

A good first foreign trip .  Nice to see.  Short sentances are back.  Anyway,

No prime minister in recent memory has spent this much time on a Canadian military base abroad. While former prime minister Jean Chretien made a brief stopover at the airfield a couple of years ago, for instance, Harper planned to sleep Sunday night on the base and spend Monday mixing with the troops at the dining hall and various facilities around the camp...

"We talked about it in the campaign. You recall the slogan was 'Stand Up for Canada' I don't think there's been a better example in decades of Canada really standing up, going to the front line, articulating our values, not just our opposition to terror, our advancement of democracy, but basic humanitarian values, in terms of development, women's rights, education ," Harper said during his brief airplane conversation with reporters. "So I just think this is a tremendous mission where we're showing leadership and leadership, taking on dangers, and advancing the kind of things that go to the heart of what Canada is all about as a country."

This kind of talk is long overdue, but is also helpful politically.  With the NDP against the mission, and the Liberals waffling (imagine the party that while in power sent the troops, now wants a "debate" - maybe they want a do-over), Harper is staking out exactly the right position, smack in the center, supporting out troops. 

 

Who doesn't want to support the troops?  It's a good issue for Harper, especially since ethics isn't going to be anymore.  He needs to fight as many battles as possible on his good issues, and stay away from the ones that are likely to hurt him (ethics again - what a stupid move that was...).  The upcoming session should be awesome.