Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s unexpected appearance is rather suspiciously timed. Earlier this month, the CIA’s favorite newspaper, the Washington Times, ran an article claiming the Pentagon “is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to internal military documents and officers familiar with the program…. documents state that the U.S. campaign aims to turn Iraqis against Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, by playing on their perceived dislike of foreigners. U.S. authorities claim some success with that effort, noting that some tribal Iraqi insurgents have attacked Zarqawi loyalists.” Such an effort is required because most Iraqis believe al-Zarqawi is a Pentagon contrivance, although the Post does not allude to this fact. “For the past two years, U.S. military leaders have been using Iraqi media and other outlets in Baghdad to publicize Zarqawi’s role in the insurgency. The documents explicitly list the ‘U.S. Home Audience’ as one of the targets of a broader propaganda campaign.”

Now we are expected to believe al-Zarqawi has obliged the Pentagon by appearing in a video—even though, over the last few years, the mercurial terrorist has assiduously avoided being photographed (except as the hooded executioner of the supposedly hapless Nick Berg—if we are to believe the fairy tale of al-Zarqawi’s supposed exploits). According to NBC, al-Zarqawi decided to be videotaped in order “to display unity among the jihadis in Iraq,” as the fantasy generated by the Pentagon and the White House stipulates that al-Zarqawi runs the resistance (only foreign “jihadis” and Saddam “dead-enders” are involved in the effort to force the United States out of Iraq—everybody else is ready with rose petals, ever thankful for bombed hospitals, destroyed electrical infrastructure, polluted water, and relatives shot up at checkpoints manned by trigger-happy yahoos who thought they joined the military to get an education, differnet than the education they are now getting).

NBC also points out “Zarqawi appears in front of the Mujahedin Shura Council logo” in the video. The Mujahedin Shura Council is portrayed as an “umbrella” group of several resistance organizations in Iraq. “The Mujahideen Shura Council is composed of eight insurgency groups in Iraq: al-Qaeda in Iraq, Victorious Army Group, the Army of al-Sunnah Wal Jama’a, Jama’a al-Murabiteen, Ansar al-Tawhid Brigades, Islamic Jihad Brigades, the Strangers Brigades, and the Horrors Brigades, collaborating to meet the ‘unbelievers gathering with different sides’ and defend Islam.,” writes the SITE Institute.

On April 4, the Telegraph speculated “Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the most feared commander in the Iraqi insurgency, may have been forced to surrender his leadership by rival groups, angered by his tactics and the interference of foreign fighters in the Iraqi conflict…. [al-Zarqawi’s] tactics have alienated many Iraqis, even those sympathetic to the insurgency. Azzam, whose father is known as the ‘prince of the Mujaheedin’, said that he was accused of ‘creating an independent group’ in Iraq, ‘making political mistakes’ and hijacking the Iraqi insurgency for his own cause.” Indeed, the dead al-Zarqawi’s “independent group” hijacked the resistance— not for al-Zarqawi’s “cause,” mind you, but rather the Pentagon sponsored “cause” of portraying the entirely legitimate Iraqi resistance as blood-thirsty thugs and promoting and effectuating “civil war” engineered to result in the balkanization of Iraq. It appears the Pentagon is attempting to hitch al-Zarqawi’s wagon up to the Mujahedin Shura Council, even though he (or the black op in his name) was rejected as a sadistic self-seeker by the Council, or so we are told.

“It was not possible to confirm authenticity, but it was posted on a Web site that al-Zarqawi’s group and others have used to post Internet messages,” NBC continues, adding more dimension to the absurd al-Zarqawi fable. “Al-Zarqawi previously has made statements only through audiotapes posted on the Web, although photos of him obtained by the U.S. government have been widely circulated,” never mind that these photos—numbering less than a dozen—are four or more years old and since they were taken virtually no reliable sources have witnessed the one-leg wonder who has escaped apprehension on several occasions.

In essence, the “release” of this purported video (no doubt straight from a Pentagon video editing deck) is a transparent effort to rekindle the al-Zarqawi myth and connect it to the Iraqi resistance at large. Now, with fresh imagery in mind, millions of gullible Americans will declare al-Zarqawi and his boss, the long deceased Osama bin Laden, alive, well, and on the loose—as Orwell’s Emmanuel Goldstein of the “Brotherhood” was on the run—thus necessitating a “long war” at the behest of the Straussian neocons, their heirs, and the heirs of their heirs, ad infinitum.

Of course, it will be impossible to “confirm” the “authenticity” of the al-Zarqawi video—that is to say not without a video graphics sequence supervisor, a few animators and technical directors on the Pentagon payroll coming forward and spilling the beans.