CTV reports that the Prime Minister has been advised to tone down the rhetoric with respect to the war in Afghanistan. Best not to focus on the reality of war, nor Canada’s national security interest in fighting terrorism abroad, rather tell it like another one of those dandy peace keeping missions.

We’re there for the women and children everyone!

So lets face it, Harper should be talking as much as he can about the good Canadian soldiers are doing in Afghanistan; not only providing law and order, but bolstering aid and development. However, he should not, for one minute, play to the traditional pat-ourselves-on-the-back Canadian national pathology toward peace keeping. It’s in our national interest for that self-congratulatory and desultory nonsense to die! Even peace keeping missions need to serve our national interest; Canadians told this straight up.

When it comes to Afghanistan, Canadians need to be told what’s in it for us, how it serves our national interest to be in Afghanistan, and how the soldiers serving in Afghanistan know this full well. Those boys—and a few girls—are fighting and dying for Canada, not some hell-bent over-eager idealism!

The idea that Canadians are just do-good internationalists keeping the peace between warring parties—out of our own benevolence, with little expectation of casualties—is not only vain, it’s a well-worn foreign policy hat that Canadians should never wear again. It not only blinds Canadians to the very real threats, and root causes of those threats, to our national security and sovereignty, it reinforces a moralizing self-righteousness that far too readily excuses bad governance at home.

Thankfully, Canada’s new Conservative government has done an admirable job of ushering this country back into the real world, a world where national sovereignty and punching above one’s weight comes at a real cost, one that requires serious strategic thinking.