shell-command, its relatives, and aliases

[Bill Rising]

I would like to use aliases in (shell-command ...) or (call-process  
region ...). Even if I tell the latter to behave as a login shell, and  
make sure that the aliases are available to the login shell, I cannot  
get them to execute.

The shell can see the aliases without any problem, because I can send  
the -alias- command and get the list of aliases.

It seems to me that elisp is trying to see if the command is defined  
before running it, instead of simply letting the shell chew on  
whatever was sent to it. This could be a grave misconception.

In any case, is there are way to be able to use aliases within any of  
the 'execute this line/region without starting a buffer with a shell'  
commands?

Thanks,

Bill