How do we argue in exceptional situations? What argumentative patterns do we fall back on in a bid to justify decisions with major ethical repercussions? What kinds of text are produced under these circumstances? The book analyses two prototypic editorials on the Gulf War of 1991 with a view to demonstrating how discourses function in explosive situations, how they can be analysed, and how they can be tested for coherence. The study gives equal attention to compliance with the rules of argumentation, subtle floutings of these rules, and totally unwarranted conclusions.