Countries waging unpopular and dubious conflicts engage in social engineering.

Whether that's through manipulating facts and perceptions at the front or at home, governments consider it essential in countering the erosion of public confidence that comes naturally from ill-considered and conceived wars or occupations.

Perhaps I was naive to be surprised at seeing for the first time military hardware at a Calgary Stampede caravan breakfast a few years ago. I recall wondering what the Armed Forces had to do with pancake breakfasts and I don't recall any unloading of syrup from the back of the army-green truck.

On the grounds this year, the military exhibit seemed bigger than ever, with fewer holds barred than before.

The usual weapons were there -- armoured vehicles, small arms and anti-tank rocket launcher.

But now they're showing off the heavier lethal ordnance like evil-nosed and finned air-to-air or air-to-ground missiles.

A lanky, torpedo-like projectile hugging the asphalt was perfect to re-create a suicidal Dr. Strangelovian bareback ride, cowboy hat thrust aloft.

There's something compelling about the hardware that empowers humankind in its extremity and I'm a sucker for it nearly every time. That's precisely the idea: Curious, shiny, happy people clambering over death machines in their summer fun duds is a fine disinfectant. It's part of the normalization when the sight of such equipment becomes increasingly routine.

No headless bodies, burned babies or scattered entrails, just gleaming steel and smiling soldiers.

We're at war and it's all about self-defence is the message, even when it's meddling in a civil war beyond our understanding .

Maybe I'm naive in being surprised by a tour of the grounds and the khaki toy carnival this month by military attaches from nearly two dozen countries.

They were officially pegged as visiting to savour the local "culture," which was cute.

These are people who gather intelligence on the warlike proclivities of allies and drum up support for military activity. Some of those visiting were from countries whose militaries are infamous for their activities -- Indonesia, Algeria, Turkey and oh, yeah, the U.S.

The grounds have become a laundromat for a lot more than cowboy threads caked with infield mud.

Wandering through all the cool gear and sunscreened PR flacks, the brutal absurdities being windowdressed seem all the more distant.

The prisoners tortured and murdered by our allies in Afghanistan aren't on any recruitment brochure.

Neither is the $500 million from the international community -- mainly the U.S. -- being spent to ensure the "re-election" of the president and government Afghans recognize and detest as puppets.

Reports this month of how the Afghan police we're training have so sullied themselves that some villagers have welcomed the Taliban as liberators is tough to square with all the blinding sunbeams.

Given the history of the West's duplicity in backing every side of the Afghan mess at one time or another, is it a stretch we'll be fighting alongside the Taliban a decade from now?

Our men and women serving their country deserve better than that. And they deserve more than their political leaders, soured enough on it all to pull the plug in 18 months while demanding they sacrifice right up until then. At least that's what we're being told for now -- the best case scenario.

It's cynicism as political blood sport. Amid it all, the conditioning not only goes on, it's ratcheted up.

When a government is determined to ignore the majority of its own anti-war citizenry while proclaiming it is spreading democracy through force, it hasn't a choice.

BILL.KAUFMANN@SUNMEDIA.CA