The Stuff of Nightmares

In the fiercely contested field of journalism, analysis and commentary about the vexing conundrum called “the war in Afghanistan,” there exists a gobsmacking surfeit of material that operates almost exactly like that strange phenomenon of particle physics known as antimatter.

It is a phylum of reportage that actually subtracts from the sum total of knowledge on the subject. You set out to read an article in a perfectly reputable newspaper, say, The Globe and Mail or the Toronto Star, and if you are not very careful by the end of it you will know less about Afghanistan than when you started.

Just the other day I came upon an occurrence of the phenomenon in the pages of The Guardian under the headline: “US drone strikes more deadly to Afghan civilians than manned aircraft—adviser.”