This is what I feared. This is what we should have been paying more attention to in foreign relations

A lot of people are saying this is the start of WWIII and I'm not sure I disagree. This in from Al Jazeera via the BBC

Al-Qaeda's deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has said in a video the militant network will respond to attacks on Muslims in Lebanon and Gaza.

The video was broadcast by Arabic television station al-Jazeera.

Al-Qaeda could not remain silent in the face of a "Crusader war" and now saw "all the world as a battlefield open in front of us", he said.

Events in Lebanon and Gaza showed the importance of the battle in Afghanistan and Iraq, he added.

"The war with Israel is not about a treaty, a ceasefire agreement... It is rather a jihad for the sake of God until the religion of God is established. It is jihad for the liberation of Palestine, all of Palestine, as well as every land that was a home for Islam, from Andalusia to Iraq," he said.

"As they attack us everywhere, we will attack them everywhere. As they have joined forces to fight us, our nation will unite to fight them.

"The shells and rockets which are tearing the bodies of Muslims in Gaza and Lebanon are not purely Israeli. They are produced and financed by all the countries of the Crusader alliance.

"Therefore, all those who have taken part in the crime must pay the price. We cannot just watch these shells as they pour wrath on our brothers in Gaza and Lebanon and sit back in submission."

The statement is thought to be the first comment by al-Qaeda against Israel's war on Lebanon.

The last thing anyone wants is disparate terrorist organizations uniting behind a central front that spans the entire Middle East. Its very bad mojo to give these people common cause.

The problem here is that the U.S. and Israel, and England and a slew of other countries are still trying to fight a war of weaponry. They are under the mistaken belief that if you kill every last Hexbollah and Al Queda fighter then these organizations will disappear - run into extinction.

That premise is more-or-less true when fighting countries. It is overwhelmingly false when you are fighting an ideology. The more people you kill the more martyrs you make.

I'm NOT saying this war doesn't need to be fought now. What I am saying is that it needs to be a war for the hearts and minds of people. This is a psychological war. I often use the example that the first aid on the ground in the aftermath of the Pakistan Earthquake last year was Al Queda. Helping these people pick up the pieces and reconstruct a life that had been completely shattered.

Just for citation's sake Reuters via MSNBC

I call on all Muslims and Islamic charity organizations in particular to go to Pakistan and give a lending hand to the victims there,” Zawahri said on the tape. "We all know that (President Pervez) Musharraf's government is an agent of the United States but despite that I call on all Muslims to run to the help of their brothers in Pakistan."

The result this has is staggering. There are, in effect, many thousands of pakistan civilians who might gladly house a member of Al Queda.

This isn't about money. This is about action on the ground. We just sent 30 million to Lebanon as a gesture of support for their government against Hezbollah and it might have been about as effective had we just burned the money. This is about putting the picture in peoples lminds that he United States was there to help them in their time of need. I'd bet that most of the lebanese don't even know about that $30 mil and if they did they wouldn't draw any connections about how it will eventually help them (if?).

This isn't complex. If you want to be loved the world round, do something to be loved. This is why we were the hero of the world post WWII. We had just done something highly visible, at great personal cost, to help the world.

What will we be in WWIII?

Map: Map of the current conflict in Israel & Lebanon. Courtesy of the BBC.