As you know, Afghanistan is becoming a very popular travel destination - especially if you're a politician. In fact, for two years in a row now, it's beating Florida.

Basically, every Member of Parliament in this country wants to go. This is retail politics 101. You get off the plane, you put on the helmet, you make sure it's not on backwards, you get your picture taken with a couple of soldiers, a few Afghani youngsters, you come home, you get a bump in the polls. It's almost impossible to screw up. It's why it's one of the few things that Stephen Harper allows his cabinet ministers to do without adult supervision.

It's also why Stephane Dion has been asking to go for a very long time. And this past week, the Tories finally said yes. So off Dion went. And boy did he make a balls of it. The man comes back from Afghanistan, he says Canada should pull out of combat by 2009. Fine, that's always been his position. But then, he throws in, as an afterthought, that perhaps NATO should consider invading Pakistan. Wow, I never saw that one coming. You know, it's not everyday that a Canadian politician suggests invading another country, especially one with the bomb.

Now of course, the Tories, they loved this, but while Dion might have put his foot in his mouth, what the Tories did was far worse. When politicians visit Afghanistan, it's always a secret. Those are the rules, the military writes them. They are very, very touchy about this. They don't want the Taliban to know when politicians are visiting because then they become a target. And shag the politicians; remember, it's the soldiers who are guarding the politicians you have to worry about.

So Dion, true to his word, he never told a soul he was going. His staff didn't even know he was going. But the Tories, they said, "the hell with the military," and they had a cabinet minister, Helena Guergis, release details of the visit. Sure, Canadian military lives were put at risk, but I guess that's the price you have to pay when you're facing re-election in Simcoe-Grey.

Now personally, I don't know why they did this. I mean, if Michael Ignatieff or Bob Rae called the Taliban and told them that Dion was coming that would make sense. But this, this is just Tories being Tories. It's like they can't even stop themselves.

Now personally, now that it's over, I'm glad Dion made the trip, if for no other reason it shows us one more thing that the Liberals and Tories have in common: they both say they support our troops, but what they really love is using them.