Its title is: “USA v. Asher Karni, Mag. No. 03-707 (TFH/JMF).” This very serious federal criminal case, involving potentially a matter of nuclear terrorism, has been filed in the U.S. District Court, in Washington, DC. However, unlike the hysteria over Michael Jackson, Martha Stewart, and the break up of that silly Affleck-Lopez’s relationship, it is getting little or no attention by the Establishment Media. Why? Is it because the defendant is an Israeli citizen, with close connections to its military regime?

According to court documents, Karni served as an officer in the Israeli Occupation Army “from 1971 to 1985.” That’s 14 years of military expertise, with an outfit notorious for sucker punching its opponents and kicking their victims, while they are on the ground begging for mercy, or, like with Rachel Corrie, running her over with a bulldozer. Karni knows his way around the block. He is no Woody Allen-like nerd, that’s for sure. You could say that he is a professional. A professional, what?

Karni stands accused of illegally sneaking 66 U.S.-made nuclear weapons detonators, via South Africa, his present home base for business, into Pakistan. Pretty serious stuff. The triggered spark gaps have a dual use. Hospitals use them to break up kidney stones, but they can also be used to electronically trigger a nuclear weapon.

According to the Feds, Karni tried to buy the devices from a manufacturer located in New England. He was advised that he would need a license to export them. The clever Karni then set up a number of front companies, to ship the devices to South Africa, and then on to Pakistan. Thankfully, the Feds got on to him, and the producer of the device disabled them, so that they couldn’t be used by any element bent on a massive terrorist killing spree.

Yet, despite all of the above, Karni was granted bail of $100,000, on Jan. 28, 2004, by Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan. Why? Why is Karni, age 50, being treated with such kid gloves? Why, too, aren’t the anti-terrorism hard liners, such as Attorney General John Ashcroft and V.P. Dick Cheney, demanding that federal prosecutors toss the book at Karni and throw the key away?

There is, indeed, something bizarre going on here. As far as the Establishment Media is concerned, the case of “USA v. Asher Karni” hardly exist. For example, the “Washington Post,” the “Washington Times” and the “Baltimore Sun,” have all ignored it, despite its wider, lethal implications. The wire services, however, like AP’s Matt Kelley, in his “Israeli Man in Nuke Triggers Case,” 01/28/04, have picked it up, as has Karen Abbott, “Rocky Mountain News,” (01/13/04), “Israeli Goes Free on Bail.”

You would think, too, that media windbags, like: Bill O’Reilly, Wolf Blitzer and Sean Hannity, would have all raised the matter of the Karni case on their cable tv shows by now. They’re supposedly concerned about any threats to national security. Right? Yet, they have been silent.

This case raises, on its face, profound questions regarding a nuclear Middle East black market, and of a conniving middleman, a la Arnold Rothstein, trying to make a quick buck off a sale, that if successful, could put the entire world at risk. (Rothstein was a notorious NYC gangster, who funded the first organized Drug Cartel in this country, back in the 1920s. He also fixed the 1919 World Series. See, the riveting “Rothstein,” by David Pietrusza, for all the disgusting details.)

And, what meaning, if any, should be attributed to Karni’s long, intimate involvement with the Israeli military? Does he also have Mossad ties? Who is he, really? And, who, if anyone, is he working for? Are other intriguers, in Tel Aviv, involved in this international conspiracy? The American people deserve answers to these questions.

Chief Judge Hogan agreed that, based on the Feds’ proffer of evidence, that the “weight of the evidence against the defendant is substantial.” The judge also conceded that Karni, who was arrested on Jan. 1, 2004, while going through Customs at the Denver International Airport, has “no ties to the U.S. or to Washington, DC area,” although, he does have “ties to Israel and is a citizen of that nation.”

At an earlier bail hearing, on Jan. 14, 2004, a sitting magistrate, Judge Michael Watanabe, established that there “was probable cause that Mr. Karni committed the alleged crime.” Bail was set at $75,000. The government appealed his bail decision to Judge Hogan. The government now indicates that it will not appeal Judge Hogan’s bail decision, which releases Karni to the custody of a rabbi at the “Hebrew Sheltering Home in Silver Spring, MD,” one of the most affluent, predominately Jewish cities in the U.S. Karni is subject to electronic monitoring.

More Queries: Why wasn’t Karni tagged as an “enemy combatant,” like Jose Padilla, a dirty bomb suspect, who is being held on the most dubious kind of evidence, despite being an American citizen? Does the Bush-Cheney Gang’s “War on Terrorism” only apply to defendants who are of Arab stock and/or adhere to the Muslim religion? And, why the silence, too, on this life and death issue, from the Godfathers of the Homeland Security Law, Rep. “Pious Tom” Lantos (D-CA), Joseph I. “The Whiner” Lieberman (D-CT) and Rep. Tom “The Bug Man” DeLay (R-TX)?

If the Bush-Cheney Gang continues to treat the Karni case as simply a supposed violation of an export licensing law, and not as a potentially serious terrorism-supporting crime, with ramifications that pose a real and continuing threat to the very security of the nation, than we have to ask ourselves this final question: Is the U.S.’ “special relationship” with Zionist Israel a national suicide pact?

Karni is entitled to his day in court. No one in America will be looking to bulldoze his home or arrest and torment his family, as the brutal Israeli occupiers regularly do to the Palestinian people. Nevertheless, it was, under the circumstances of his case, wrong to grant him bail. Karni deserves to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

© William Hughes 2004

William Hughes is the author of “Saying ‘No’ to the War Party” (Iuniverse, Inc.), which is available at Amazon.com. He can be reached at: liamhughes-AT-mindspring.com.