Harrowing risks and insurgent seepings.

On Tuesday Canada's national Mop & Pail newsrag ran a Canadian Press story by a chap named Les Perraux noting that the Canadian Afghanistan mission was the top news story of 2006. Not too surprising if you think about such things. Consider, however, how Mr. Perraux depicts the deployment.

For the first time since the Korean War, Canadian soldiers went into sustained, major combat and suffered hundreds of casualties, including 36 deaths in the past year.

Canadians took tiny patches of terrain at harrowing risk only to have insurgents seep back into strongholds. like ghosts of anti-Soviet forces from the 1980s.

And through the spring-to-fall Afghan fighting season, images of Maple Leaf-draped coffins became crimson staples for front pages and newscasts.

There is nothing I like better than un-slanted, fact-based news story that leaves editorializing to - ah - editorial writers. Yessiree. Globe & Mail editors and Canadian Press writers are exemplars of this fine liberal press tradition, as the above noted prose exemplifies. Don'tcha think?