Angry in the Great White North

Rick Mercer is one of several notable Canadians flying to Afghanistan to visit our troops in Kandahar:

Gen. Rick Hillier celebrated Christmas with his family a week ago so he could spend the real holiday with soldiers, sailors and air personnel in and around Afghanistan.

The chief of the defence staff flew yesterday to visit the patrol frigate HMCS Ottawa in the Persian Gulf at the start of a whirlwind holiday tour.

He flies into Afghanistan on Christmas Eve after a day aboard the warship.

And he has taken some entertainment for the troops, including comedians Rick Mercer and Mary Walsh and the Montreal rock band Jonas.

This is not Rick Mercer's first trip. He blogged about a previous trip to Kabul and Kandahar in October of 2005:

I have just returned from a week in Afghanistan. Now I am back in the office and somehow wrapping my head around creating a new TV season. The Jet lag is a bit nutty though so I keep ducking under my desk for power naps. Nobody bothers me in this position; they just assume I am management.

Arseholes are a fact of life but, as God is my witness, I never met any on this trip and I met about 700 people. This must qualify as a statistical anomaly.

This was my second trip to Afghanistan and the capitol city of Kabul has changed dramatically since Canada showed up. Kabul looks and feels like a city on the mend. New construction is everywhere, the stores are crowded, there is fresh produce in abundance and women are seen everywhere on the streets -- many without Burkas. Canada has played a huge part in this transformation. Now things start to get real tricky. The bulk of Canada’s troops will soon be stationed in Kandahar. This is the Wild West. Kandahar is, bottom line, far more dangerous than Kabul.

In Kandahar we were lucky enough to go along on a foot patrol. The kids go crazy for the Canadian soldiers and mob them wherever they go. They want high fives and pens. The pictures speak for themselves.

Rick Mercer goes on a foot patrol, in the heat and the dust, and risking injury and death from Taliban attack. And he counts himself lucky.

What great pictures they are. I encourage you to take a look.

Have a safe trip, Rick. And my thanks for doing as much as you can to help spread the cheer among our brave men and women overseas.