Believe Seymour Hersh or not, his contention, revealed in the video below, follows the established pattern. As we know, the CIA organized the Afghan Mujahideen, with the assistance of Pakistan’s ISI and a large influx of Saudi money, and after the Soviets exited Afghanistan with their tails tucked, the Mujahidden splintered into the Taliban and “al-Qaeda,” the latter comprised of primarily Sunni Wahhabi fanatics.

Once again, the “al-Qaeda” myth will be put to the test, for Mr. Hersh tells us there are “at least three jihadist groups… connected at al-Qaeda” at work in Lebanon against the Shi’a, i.e., Hezbollah, and they are financed by the Saudi monarchy.

Rest assured, Saudi intelligence, Al Mukhabarat Al A’amah, does not act without explicit instructions from the United States. It is no mistake Turki bin Faisal al-Saud, former intelligence head, now comfortably ambassador to the United Kingdom and Ireland, was Osama bin Laden’s handler in Afghanistan, although the corporate media has turned mighty somersaults to make this relationship appear innocent, if not disappear altogether.

According to Hersh, none other than Bandar bin Sultan, known simply as Prince Bandar here in America, is behind this effort to pass out money to “tough” Sunni groups—apparently associated with “al-Qaeda,” thus connected to U.S. and Saudi intelligence—and tasking them with killing Shi’ites in Iran and Lebanon, much the same way the mythical al-Zarqawi killed Shi’ites in Iraq. It should be no surprise Bandar is so important to the Bush crime family and the neocons, he was informed of the decision to invade Iraq ahead of Secretary of State Colin Powell, or so claims the former military intelligence operative Bob Woodward.

Hersh believes the neocons have made a “policy change,” deciding to put “pressure on the Shi’ites” through Sunni proxies and thus replicate the chaos and misery of Iraq in both Lebanon and Iran, referred to as the “Shi’ite Crescent,” according to the neocons. Hersh believes “his government” is “sitting back” while the Saudis run this operation—a delusional fantasy at best, as there is plenty of evidence “al-Qaeda” and “Sunni jihadists” are not renegade operations but rather under the control of U.S., British, Saudi, and Pakistani intelligence, the latter two acting as liaison offices passing out marching orders, as no self-respecting “jihadist” patsy would take an order directly from the CIA or the Pentagon.

In short, Seymour Hersh buys into the “al-Qaeda” fairy tale, as does the rest of the corporate media.

Finally, Hersh expects us to believe John Negroponte was shifted over to the State department because he was “not in tune with Cheney” and was considered “too ethical” for the continuing plans of the neocons, never mind Negroponte’s ethics were obviously nowhere to be found when he was micromanaging Honduran death squads during the good old “Iran-Contra” heyday of the 1980s. Moreover, Hersh tells us Robert Gates, no slack when it comes to Iran-Contra and facilitating what would ultimately become “al-Qaeda,” is attempting to “get control” over Pentagon covert operations, behavior Hersh ascribes to Rumsfeld. In fact, the Pentagon has engaged in brutal covert operations for decades, in essence competing with the CIA to see who can kill more people.

It should be obvious what is going on here—Sy Hersh, offering a mix of truth and fabrication, is acting as a shill for the neolib faction of the ruling elite, weary of neocon over-the-top brusqueness and their overt Israeli obsession. Of course, the neolib faction does not exactly cringe at the prospect of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dead Muslims, or the splintering of the Arab and Muslim world along the fissures of a hyped-up and exacerbated Islamic schism, but rather they prefer to do such behind the scenes, as they have in the past—through skullduggery and “color revolutions”—and avoid a cataclysmic “World War Four,” as the neocons fondly call their mass murder and misery project.