As we know, al-Zawahiri has verified links to the Pentagon, as he served as commander of the Mujahedeen forces in the Balkans.

"The role of the Pentagon in airlifting the Mujahedeen terrorists into Bosnia and Kosovo between 1992 to 1995 has been well documented and widely reported in the European and Canadian media, but almost completely ignored in the United States," writes Tim Howells for Online Journal.

Another bit of information, long ago flushed down the memory hole (reconstituted here), reveals how al-Zawahiri was sponsored by FBI operative and failed CIA agent Ali Mohamed, who brought him to San Francisco on a "covert fund-raising mission" during the Pentagon's recruitment of "al-Qaeda," sent to Bosnia (see this congressional press release, dated 16 January 1997).

"The war with Israel does not depend on cease-fires.... It is a Jihad for the sake of God and will last until (our) religion prevails ... from Spain to Iraq," the Pentagon operative al-Zawahiri told the world through al-Jazeera television, never mind that al-Zawahiri's violent version of Wahabbi Sunni Islam is at odds with Shi'a Islam, the sect Hezbollah's follows.

"Zawahiri's comments indicated that Al-Qaeda, which is made up of Sunni Islamist extremists, was prepared to help Hezbollah despite differences with the Shia sect," adds the Khaleej Times.

If we are to buy the official version of events, "al-Qaeda" has spent a lot of time and money in Iraq slaughtering Shi'a Muslims, deemed infidels deserving little more than an ignoble death. But both have put aside their differences-for instance, the bloody Shi'a-Sunni sectarian violence in Iraq-and are now happily collaborating.

In an effort to iron out this inconsistency, the neocons have flipped into overdrive. "If the Lebanese conflict drags on, it would be likely that al Qaeda would try to work again with its occasional ally in an alliance of convenience that could benefit both groups," writes Douglas Farah, a former "investigative journalist" for the CIA's favorite newspaper, the Washington Post. "The chaos in the region benefits all the non-state armed groups, and such circumstances often give rise to transitory (or perhaps permanent) alliances between groups that share the same goals and resources. While Zarqawi fanned the flames of the Sunni-Shi'ite divide inside Iraq, it was in part a tactical decision to weaken the government and cause a civil war, rather than a theological decision."

Those silly Muslims didn't really mean it and they are as amoral and Machiavellian as their sponsors, a rotating lazy Susan of usual suspects, including the Pentagon, CIA, ISI, MI6, and of course Mossad.

"The shells and rockets ripping apart Muslim bodies in Gaza and Lebanon are not only Israeli (weapons), but are supplied by all the countries of the crusader coalition. Therefore, every participant in the crime will pay the price." In other words, the CIA-ISI spawned "al-Qaeda," supposedly headed up by the dead Freddy Kruger Islamic nemesis Osama bin Laden, will attack the "crusader coalition" in the name of Hezbollah.

Of course, no demonization of a legitimate resistance movement would be complete without a cameo appearance by the Muslim Evil One himself. "Another new audio or video message from bin Laden was also expected in the coming days and was planned to deal with Gaza and Lebanon, according to IntelCenter. The U.S.-based independent group provides counterterrorism information to the U.S. government and media," that is to say it serves as a propaganda outfit dispensing scary campfire stories, designed in part to stampede Americans into supporting the neocon Crusade and total "clash of civilizations" war, promised by our rulers to last a hundred or more years.

Back in 2003, the scurrilous neocon, Iran-Contra criminal, PNAC and CFR member, Richard Armitage, told CBS' Sixty Minutes "Hezbollah may be the 'A-Team of Terrorists' and maybe al-Qaeda is actually the 'B' team. And they're on the list and their time will come.... There is no question about it-it's all in good time. And we're going to go after these problems just like a high school wrestler goes after a match. We're going to take them down one at a time."

Here in America, a semi-somnolent and easily distracted public, consumers of endless official lies and dissimulation wrapped in fancy computer graphics and delivered by vacuous anchors, will likely buy into the effort to churn Hezbollah into an "al-Qaeda" variant, or if neocons such as Armitage have their way, an ominous terrorist group eclipsing "al-Qaeda."

However, in Lebanon, this make-over is meaningless, as Hezbollah will continue to fight against the invading and marauding Israelis, regardless of Israeli and American propaganda.

Finally, Hezbollah's Hasan Nasrallah told CBS' Ed Bradley in 2003: "I believe the Americans are just saying what the Israelis want them to say. I consider this to be an Israeli accusation coming out of an American mouth and nothing more."

Indeed, this is the case every time one flips on Fox News and its imitators.