The Northern Alliance Has Won, So Don't Expect It To Give Up Power 'It is the guns which will count. They are the symbol of the new Afghanistan just as they were of the old' By Patrick Cockburn The IndependentCounterpunch

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Reporters On Reporters : This week Slate Column on The War Briefers provides an educated view of what it's like to be in the Pentagon Briefing room with all those "big wigs" -- What it's like to feel the heat and penetrating impulse of a hot sizzling War forecast presented in complete living color from our nations most diligent dodgers of questions -- the military and 'all the Presidents men.'  Gather round ye boys and girls for we are invited to a 'major briefing' filled with absolute nothingness! This excellent article presents the readers with the pattern of styles this administration has developed so confidently with it's media ad execs -- presenting us with the suave and 'debonair 5 star tribute. You get 5 styles! You get 5 practiced sponsors with fresh and polished answers! And best of all you get reporters who are guaranteed to respond in a Robo-op/Pleasantville/Natural Born Killers fashion .... All for your non-stop viewing pleasure and media marketing! What a glorious edge this must provide for the network industries sponsors -- Slate tells why you're guaranteed to stay glued to your viewbox and how the audience can be manipulated into reacting the same way the H57Variety reporters do -- reacting to some of the most horribly photogenic men of our time standing there blowing wads of nothing into reporters faces and expecting them to swallow. Check out Slate and find out what the media is really about!The War Briefers How Rumsfeld, Stufflebeem, and the rest defeat the press.