Conspiracy: The cases of Asher Karni and Ryan G. Anderson 

Conspiracy: The cases of Asher Karni and Ryan G. Anderson

By Curtis B Maynard

A Newsweek article in January 1997, states that, "Conspiracy paranoia is surrounding us. A paranoid person might even say it's closing in, because these wacky theories aren't just spreading in the usual cheesy newsletters dense with type and craziness. Fomented on the Internet, conspiracies have become a kind of Para-religion. Its vast flock ranges from casual believers to zealots who think O.J. Simpson was set up by the Japanese Mafia and that Prince Charles is a puppet of the New World Order ..." That statement has never been more true. Every day people all over the world find new “evidence” that people and often governments are joining against them. Of course every conspiracy theory cannot be true, but some theories, although controversial have substantial evidence to back them up, and therefore reveal that at least some conspiracies are authentic. One such conspiracy can be found in a close examination of the state of Israel and what appears to be a favorable bias the Zionist state enjoys in the mainstream media, particularly in the United States of America.

Our current Secretary of State Colin Powell recently stated, “It is not anti-Semitic to criticize the policies of the state of Israel.”

These wise words are very important to remember in studying this conspiracy. One can find one’s self in a very uncomfortable position when attempting to persuade others that the American mainstream media manifests a decided bias in favor of the state of Israel, in fact, one can find one’s self labeled an anti-Semite for attempting to do so, but the objective observer can reach no other conclusion when weighing the preponderance of evidence. The fact is, for whatever reason, the American mainstream media does manifest a decided bias in favor of the Zionist state of Israel. Examining this issue closely and considering its potential ramifications does not, nor can it, constitute anti-Semitism, to suggest as much at this point in modern history ultimately lends credence to the idea that our society is willing to “kill the messenger, for dislike of the message,” and all that implies.

A substantial amount of evidence can be found in a comparative analysis between two very interesting and distinctly different individuals. One, a rather insignificant personality by the name of Ryan G. Anderson, accused of passing information on “U.S military capabilities and weaponry,” to FBI agents posing as Al Qaeda operatives on the Internet; the other, a gentlemen by the name of Asher Karni who was arrested on January 2, 2004 at Denver International Airport for having sold Pakistan at least sixty-six spark gap igniters, devices used to trigger or detonate nuclear weapons. For whatever reason the crime committed by Ryan G. Anderson has been broadcast to the entire nation, whereas Asher Karni remains an almost nonentity in the American consciousness primarily because the media has chosen to remain silent about him and his case.

Is this a conspiracy or is it just an example of media negligence and/or indifference? Fundamentally that is the real question. In order for one to conclude that there is or may be a conspiracy at the center of this issue, it is crucial that one understand what exactly Ryan G. Anderson did and then compare that to what in fact Asher Karni is accused of.

Ryan G. Anderson apparently did pass along information about the technical aspects of the M1 Abrams main battle tank, an armored vehicle that has been in service since the early 1980s, as well as possible vulnerabilities inherent in other military equipment. Mr. Anderson was in fact a Specialist in the National Guard and had recently been activated and stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington, outside of the city of Tacoma. A Specialist is an enlisted man with the rank of E4, which essentially means he was neither a noncommissioned officer nor an officer, but was in fact a somewhat glorified private. As a rule, the United States military does not entrust privates with extremely sensitive information, especially privates serving in the National Guard, without a “Top Secret,” clearance, which Anderson did not have.

Anderson of course cannot be excused from what he did. He intended to, according to the FBI, pass along information that could potentially have jeopardized the safety of U.S. military personnel during a time of war to individuals he believed to be Al Qaeda operatives-- a clear case of treason. However, let us closely scrutinize the ramifications of that information had it gotten into the wrong hands. According to an April, 2004 article in Newsweek magazine, coalition forces had “at least 650 tanks in Iraq.” This of course includes the tanks of other coalition member nations, weapon platforms in which Anderson would have known nothing about. For the purposes of this study and the sake of expediency, let us liberally assume that there may be as many as one thousand M1 Abrams main battle tanks in the Iraqi theatre. An M1 Abrams tank utilizes a four-man crew: the driver, gunner, loader and track commander. If Anderson’s information miraculously allowed Iraqi insurgents to exploit and simultaneously take out every M1 tank in Iraq along with its crew, one might expect that approximately four thousand lives could be lost. Compare that number to the number of people that might be expected to die from an average one megaton thermonuclear weapon-- the kind of weapon that Asher Karni’s illegally and surreptitiously acquired spark gap igniters would have been used to detonate. In 1993, the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment compared a scenario involving aerosolized anthrax with the impact of a one megaton hydrogen bomb on Washington D.C. The study concluded that anthrax, if disseminated under certain conditions, could kill as many as three million people, as many or possibly more than a hydrogen bomb. Even if one were to consider that a hydrogen bomb would or could not have been developed in Pakistan, one must keep in mind that the comparably small atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima conservatively incinerated some 65,000 people. How many nuclear weapons could be constructed by utilizing sixty-six spark gap igniters? One essay has thirty-two being required to initiate the first atom bombs. Karni supplied at least enough to initiate the detonation of two nuclear weapons. In any case, if we conservatively consider the potential loss of life one might expect from what Karni already provided to what is arguably and possibly the most unstable Islamic Republic in the world today and then compare that to what Ryan G. Anderson did, we can clearly see that Karni’s actions could have far greater consequences; yet, the media is emphasizing the actions of Anderson and diminishing those of Karni simply by way of omission.

Who is Asher Karni? Why would the media for all intensive purposes ignore the ramifications of what he did and highlight the comparably insignificant Ryan G. Anderson and his crime? Asher Karni is a citizen of Israel who resided in South Africa prior to his arrest earlier this year in Colorado. According to a Commerce Department Special Agent named James Brigham as reported by Fox News on January 15, 2004, Karni owns a business in South Africa, “which trades in military and aviation electronic gear,” and employed an elaborate ruse to acquire and ultimately to export these nuclear weapon detonators to Pakistan. There is not a tremendous amount of public information available on Mr. Karni; in many respects he is shadowy figure with an obscure past.

On January 13, 2004, eleven days after Karni’s arrest, Rocky Mountain News published a very strange story concerning a man accused of exporting nuclear weapon detonators to Pakistan and how he was about to be released from federal custody on a ridiculously low bail. This must have drawn someone’s attention, as currently Karni sits in a United States federal prison without the opportunity for bail-- the very situation one would expect to see for someone accused of selling nuclear weapon detonators to a potential enemy during a time of war. Two articles published by Rocky Mountain News following Karni’s arrest can be carefully scrutinized in order to extract all of the pertinent information.

To begin with, Karen Abbott, the author of both the January 9, 2004 and January 13, 2004 articles detailing the Karni case, identifies the accused as being charged with “sending U.S. made parts that can detonate nuclear weapons to Pakistan.” Nowhere in the January 9, 2004 article is Karni identified as being an Israeli; he is merely recognized as a citizen of Cape Town, South Africa and listed as the owner of a company known as Top-Cape Technology which attempted to acquire two hundred “triggered spark gaps” from an American company identified as Perkin Elmer Optoelectronics. At some point between the first article and the second, United States Magistrate Judge Michael Watanabe ordered the release of Karni on bail. Bail was set at the paltry sum of $75,000; a pittance considering the severity of the charge, especially in a country where one can expect to pay substantial bonds for the following crimes:

· Bribing a judge = $100,000
· Manufacturing documents too hide true citizenship. = $75,000
· Influencing the testimony of a witness and/or preventing them from testifying.
100,000
· Vehicular homicide (Driving vehicle with gross negligence) $50,000
· Murder $1,000,000
· Murder with special circumstances (No bail is offered)

There are a considerable number of very odd circumstances listed in the first half of Abbott’s January 13, 2004 article entitled “Israeli goes free on bail,” beginning with the fact that bail was available at all. The first few paragraphs are most telling and reveal quite a lot when carefully examined:

An Israeli accused of illegally sneaking U.S. made nuclear detonators into Pakistan will be freed from federal custody on bail but will be confined to a rabbi’s home in Maryland. Denver U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Watanabe ordered the release of Asher Karni, 50, a citizen of Israel who lives in Cape Town, South Africa, after a hearing Monday. A rabbi arrived from Cape Town on Monday to testify that Karni is a respected member of the Jewish community there. “I know him as a very religious and honest man,” said Rabbi Menachem Popack, a U.S. citizen born in Buffalo, N.Y., who has lived in Cape Town for 28 years and has known Karni for 18 of them.

Karni’s attorney, Harvey Steinberg, of Denver, also presented supporting letters from people in South Africa and in the United States. One was from the U.S. based son-in-law of South African multimillionaire Cecil Jones, offering the $75,000 cash bail that will free Karni from federal custody. Another letter was from a rabbi in Maryland offering to let Karni and his wife live in his home while the charge is pending against him in federal court in nearby Washington D.C. Watanabe ordered Karni to live with the Maryland rabbi and wear an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet to be sure he stays there. Watanabe delayed Karni’s release until Thursday to give federal prosecutors time to appeal. Prosecutors had sought to keep Karni locked up while the charge against him works its way through the legal system. However, Prosecutor Bob Brown said he doesn’t plan to appeal.

Once again we have to consider that a man accused of selling nuclear weapon detonators to an unstable Islamic Republic during a time when the United States considers itself at war with world terrorism, a good part of which is centered in Pakistan itself, was about to be released on bail because a few rabbi’s came forward on his behalf, one even stating that he knew Karni to be a “very religious and honest man.” If selling nuclear weapon detonators to Muslim’s bent on the destruction of world Jewry, the Israeli state and the United States of America is an indication of a Jew’s religious fervor, then we need to carefully consider what that might imply.

In addition to the fact that it is most strange that a bail was even offered, the terms of Karni’s release are equally mystifying considering that he is not a United States citizen and would undoubtedly be a flight risk. He could flee to either Israel or South Africa, the former having a history of harboring fugitives from justice. Although the article emphasizes that Judge Watanabe ordered Karni to wear an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet to ensure he stays at the Maryland rabbi’s house, one needs to know that a monitoring bracelet will do absolutely nothing to prevent someone from leaving anywhere or at any time, it will only notify the police that the wearer has left the area he/she was restricted to after the fact. Perhaps strangest of all, Bob Brown, the Prosecutor in the case didn’t plan to appeal the judge’s bail decision or bond requirements, a most unusual occurrence for a prosecutor with the amount of evidence Brown had available to him and the seriousness of the crime.

Now how can this case are contrasted in an equitable manner with that of Ryan G. Anderson? The following excerpt from a Fox News article speaks for itself when one pays attention to what is being said and how it is being said. Bear in mind that Fox News first reported Mr. Anderson’s arrest on February 13, 2004, the day after Anderson was charged, unlike Karni, whose story didn’t appear in any news publication until Rocky Mountain News reported it eight days after the fact. Fox News itself didn’t cover Karni’s story at all until January 15, 2004, and then the news network itself glossed over his arrest once, never covering the story again. Compare that to the fact that Fox News has produced at least ten stories on the comparably insignificant Ryan G. Anderson. One could easily say at this point, “well of course, we all know Fox News is biased, so what?” That may well be, but Fox News network is not the only media outlet to dedicatedly ignore the story of Asher Karni and publicize that of Ryan G. Anderson. The very same phenomenon manifests itself on many other mainstream networks in North America, take for instance the CBC, Canada’s largest broadcast and news network, on February 13, 2004, the day after Anderson was arrested the CBC published a story about Anderson with a photograph of the young army specialist and biographical data which didn’t fail to mention he (Anderson) was a Muslim convert! The same network however failed to mention the fact that an Israeli was arrested at Denver International Airport for having sold Pakistan numerous nuclear weapon detonators. CNN too reveals this bias, if one conducts a search on its website, one will find two articles on Anderson and one mentioning Asher Karni, albeit the article itself focused on Pakistan’s illegal acquisition of nuclear weapons technology, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan and Pakistan’s President, Pervez Musharraf, Karni himself is only mentioned in the second to last paragraph and identified, not as an Israeli, but erroneously as a South African. One can find twelve articles related to Ryan G. Anderson on MSNBC, but up until today, September 3, 2004, there were none on Karni. However, today, September 3, 2004, MSNBC posted two articles mentioning Karni, one from Reuters and the other an Associated Press (Neither were contributed by MSNBC). Neither article focused on Karni, but rather on a South African named Johan Meyer, who has been accused of “manufacturing nuclear-related material and exporting goods that could be used in developing weapons of mass destruction.” The point is of course, that MSNBC never mentioned Asher Karni, a man accused of selling nuclear weapon detonators nine months ago, but mentions the bumbling, “wannabe al-Qaida spy,” specialist Ryan G. Anderson in twelve articles over the last eight months.

There is much happenstance associated with Israel and Israeli citizens that seem to defy logic insofar as why the media hasn’t covered the incidents in such a way as to inform the American people better than they have. Examples are abundant, and cannot be rationally explained away as mere coincidence and/or the hysterics of anti-Semites, yet despite this fact, the American people remain blissfully ignorant of them and their possible implications.

Some of these instances of bias are well known among historians, yet unknown among the general public, as an example the Lavon Affair, in which the state of Israel in 1954 recruited several Egyptians to bomb American installations in Egypt, intentionally leaving behind fabricated evidence in order to implicate Arabs and thus fracture tenuous American-Egyptians relations, which was thought might somehow benefit the state of Israel. Unfortunately these agents were caught as one of the bombs they intended to use prematurely detonated, leading to the capture of one agent and his subsequent confession. As a result of the scandal, the Israeli Defense Minister resigned in humiliation. The Lavon Affair should be closely scrutinized today, as there are some actual parallels that exist between it and September 11th, 2001 in certain respects.

In 1967 the Israeli Navy and Air force attacked an American ship dubbed the USS Liberty during the Six Day War, 34 American sailors perished and 172 others were wounded. To this day the Israeli government denies that it was intentional, insisting that they thought this ship was a “Forty year old Egyptian horse transport,” yet the matter is anything but settled. Anyone that bothers to read about the incident will have a difficult time convincing them selves that it was a case of mistaken identity. James M. Ennes Jr., the author of the definitive book on the subject, Assault on the Liberty (Random House 1980), was actually present on the ship that day, and he insists to this day that the Israeli’s were well aware of the fact that the Liberty was an American ship. The possible reasons behind the attack are numerous; yet remain cloaked in mystery, uncertainty and denial. On October 9, 2003, Captain Ward Boston, the man assigned to be the senior legal counsel in the Navy’s Court of Inquiry on the matter, came forward after signing a sworn affidavit, more than thirty years after the fact, testifying that President Lyndon B. Johnson and Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara insisted that the attack be “concluded as a case of mistaken identity despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.”

The fact that a foreign nation committed an act of war on the United States of America in the latter case and an act of terror in the first, isn’t necessarily unusual, what is unusual about the above two incidents, is that for the most part, the American public, like in the case of Asher Karni, remain completely unaware of the facts associated with them. To this day, despite strong protest, from among others, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Thomas Moorer; the United States Congress has refused to reopen the USS Liberty investigation and/or hold Congressional Hearings on the matter. The mainstream news media too has been conspicuously silent, and as a result, the American people remain in the dark.

One could write tomes on the multitude of bizarre coincidences associated with the state of Israel’s “free pass,” in the American mainstream media. In fact some people have, like former Congressman Paul Findley, who wrote an excellent expose of the power and influence enjoyed by the state of Israel in the U.S. House of Representatives the U.S. Senate, and the American mainstream news media entitled They Dare to Speak Out. Some have labeled Findley an anti-Semite as a result of his book, but few actually question the veracity of his work, preferring instead to find fault in the author’s character instead, a much easier pursuit. Findley focuses his attention on an organization known as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, a lobbying group that concerns itself with doing what lobby’s do, influencing politicians. AIPAC however, might be too good at what it does, according to their own website, AIPAC claims that Fortune magazine “ranks AIPAC among America’s most powerful interest groups,” a very powerful endorsement for an organization that represents the interests of a country of less than six million people.

The American Israel Political Affairs Committee is currently embroiled in a spy scandal of monumental proportions, one that even a very powerful interest group may have difficulty extricating itself from. Without going into great detail, the scandal centers around an analyst named Larry Franklin who was allegedly caught passing U.S. National Security information to AIPAC representatives, who may or may not have passed them on to Israel, a situation very reminiscent of what Richard Perle did in 1970, according to Congressional Testimony acquired by the renowned investigative reporter, Seymour Hersh, released in his book The Price of Power. The odd thing about Perle’s apparent act of espionage is that he later went on to become Undersecretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration and most recently an influential advisor to President George W. Bush. The American mainstream media has for all intents and purposes remained silent about what Perle did in 1970, despite the fact that he is considered to be one of the most prominent and influential neo-conservatives in Washington D.C. The lid is anything but closed on the AIPAC spy scandal; it will continue to grow and has become the focal point of interest on many of the major information clearing houses on the web. This wouldn’t be the case if the American public hadn’t developed an interest in the issue, and perhaps even a certain level of suspicion in regards to the activities of AIPAC and by association, the state of Israel.

Recently, Pat Buchanan wrote an article entitled “Pollardites in the Pentagon,” dealing with the recent AIPAC spy allegations, which recited the fact that in 1970 Richard Perle was “picked up on an FBI wiretap discussing NSC secrets with the Israeli embassy,” yet later inexplicably became assistant secretary of defense and then continued to engage in many questionable activities that seemingly benefited the state of Israel more so than the United States, Perle’s alleged home, over the last twenty-three years. The reader may be asking himself/herself, what exactly is a “Pollardite,” it is simply Buchanan’s way of bringing up another historical instance in which Israel was caught red handed engaging in espionage targeting the United States, a case in which they denied culpability as vociferously as they are today in the Larry Franklin/AIPAC case, a case they denied for thirteen years.

Jonathon Pollard was an American citizen who spied for the state of Israel and whose activities in the 1980s are considered by many to represent the most damaging intelligence breach in recent memory, not to mention causing the deaths of several American intelligence assets. Of all the individuals thus far mentioned in this paper, Pollard may in fact be the most recognized. Despite this fact and despite the fact that he was sentenced to life in prison for espionage, Israel has engaged in an aggressive campaign that includes AIPAC and even direct negotiations with past and present Israeli officials to have him freed and deported to Israel, where he is considered a hero. That’s right, a hero, an American who engaged in espionage against his own nation is considered a hero in the state of Israel. Yisrael Medad, at the time a parliamentary aide to the Tehiya Party in Israel emphasized this fact in an article appearing in the Jerusalem Post in March, 1989, entitled “Jonathon Pollard is my Purim Hero,” where he proceeds to slavishly lather praise onto a man whose actions seriously compromised American National Security and caused the deaths of American intelligence assets on the ground. Today, Medad “is responsible for Educational Programming and Information resources at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center,” and he is an “Op-Ed contributor to the Jerusalem Post, LA Times, International Herald Tribune, Sh'ma, Outpost, Israel Scene and other periodicals.

Medad isn’t the only Israeli that’s thinks highly of Pollard, in 1998, Benjamin Netanyahu; the then Prime Minister of the state of Israel actually linked an Israeli-Palestinian land-for-security agreement with the release of Pollard. When asked to comment on why he did this; Netanyahu said, according to the Associated Press:

Not only will I not apologize, I am proud that I stand up for him (Pollard) and I will continue to do so… The man worked for us and our security, Netanyahu said. He made a mistake. He should not have done what he did and Israel made a mistake by doing what it did against the United States. But he has been paying the price for 13 years and we need to get him out of there.

One could say that this kind of sentiment, on behalf of a traitor, by the leader of an alleged ally, shows very little respect for United States law and/or National Security. This is particularly frightening given that Israel is occasionally referred to as America’s fifty-first state and quite often a rogue state as well, by those not entirely enamored with the Israelis.

This strange media bias in favor of Israel is no figment of the imagination, it is real, it exists, it has for some time and it continues unhindered, except for a few voices from the wilderness. This bias prevents Americans from developing informed opinions. It prevents us from learning that the United States Drug Enforcement Agency developed a report in 2001 that was subsequently leaked to the media and has become something of a sensation since. It states that dozens and dozens of Israeli’s were arrested in the United States following September 11th for engaging in espionage, and then quietly deported to Israel before the American public was informed of the details.

This bias prevents Americans from learning that in October 2001, less than a month after 9-11; two Israeli’s were arrested for “carrying guns, hand grenades and explosives,” in the Mexican Congressional building. Inexplicably, these two men were later released to Israel after Israeli envoys came to pay Mexican officials a visit. It doesn’t make a great deal of sense, but there it is. This self evident bias prevents Americans from learning many relevant facts associated with what happened on September 11th, 2001, like the arrest of five Israeli’s, reportedly cheering with joy, while filming the disaster that befell the World Trade centers on 9-11. Neil Mackay writes:

There was ruin and terror in Manhattan, but, over the Hudson River in New Jersey, a handful of men were dancing. As the World Trade Centre burned and crumpled, the five men celebrated and filmed the worst atrocity ever committed on American soil as it played out before their eyes.
Who do you think they were? Palestinians? Saudis? Iraqis, even? Al-Qaeda, surely? Wrong on all counts. They were Israelis – and at least two of them were Israeli intelligence agents, working for Mossad, the equivalent of MI6 or the CIA.

Despite the fact that the above story did run on a fairly mainstream news site, the fact of the matter is the story and the fact that these Israeli’s including the intelligence agents were quietly deported to Israel, remains largely unknown to the majority of Americans, and if they have heard about it, are likely to dismiss it out of hand as meaningless and/or part of some paranoid conspiracy theory, yet in reality, it happened.

The problem with this bias is that it will inevitably lead, and already has to some extent, to the discrediting of the media mainstream and accreditation of what is now the marginalized media, which could have profound negative consequences. Initially this idea might seem unlikely, even impossible, but should some catastrophic event occur in the United States and the currently marginalized media covers it accurately and the mainstream sources conspire to keep it from the public, and are discovered, all bets are off, anything could happen. As it is now, the vast majority of Americans are dependent on televised news for the information they receive on a daily basis. Studies suggest that this trend had increased over time and replaced reading as both a form of entertainment and a source for information acquisition. Of course this can lead to the subjectivity of the media itself influencing the individual’s opinion formation, thus true objectivity is lost or surrendered. This critical point was emphasized when Spiro Agnew, former vice president of the United States delivered a speech in Des Moines Iowa in November 1969, in which he stated, “No medium has a more profound influence [than television news] over public opinion- nowhere in our system are there fewer checks on vast power.” The media itself is actually growing smaller and smaller, in that it is merging into fewer and fewer corporate owners, as Nicholas Johnson, (1995) a former Federal Communication Commission (FCC) official, commented on in relation to the developing media monopoly in mass communication. “At the time of the Time-Warner merger, when company executives were asked why they were merging, Time-Warner said that according to their calculations, it would not be long before there would be five firms that control all the media on Planet Earth, and that they intended to be one of them.” Johnson later acknowledged that, “it is true that most people get most of their information from television. It is also true that fewer and fewer people, particularly young people, are reading the newspapers.” To summarize the article; the media is already monopolized by a few powerful companies, but if trends continue eventually Time-Warner’s calculations may in fact be correct.

Recently however, since September 11th, 2001, many people have begun moving away from a reliance on the mainstream media and have begun to seek information on the Internet. This may be a sign of growing dissatisfaction with the reporting and/or honesty of the mainstream news, and why wouldn’t it?

If Americans as a whole were to learn a few of the facts presented in this paper tomorrow, the possible and unexpected backlash might be that they’d turn in growing numbers to the Internet for information on these issues and others, and the Internet is unregulated and tricky territory to maneuver. Many anti-Semitic websites have already exploited the media’s dishonesty in respect to its favorable bias toward the state of Israel and are well prepared to receive an influx of curious web surfers. The fact of the matter is; these sites will in all likelihood begin to look more and more credible as the mainstream media marginalizes and discredits itself through its own overt dishonesty and partiality.

It is extremely difficult to determine why exactly this bias exists and even more dangerous to speculate about, lest one be accused of anti-Semitism, racism or worse yet, being a neo-Nazi. In fact, it is dangerous to present facts on this particular topic period; it tends to elicit strong emotions among many different people for many different reasons. A Masters in Psychology thesis by Curtis Maynard in 2002 found that students tend to get emotional about issues in which they know little about. The thesis; entitled “A Study Focusing on the Formation of Opinion and the Knowledge Associated with its Development,” revealed that an over reliance on television as one’s primary source of information actually caused one to develop strong opinions even in the absence of relevant or accurate information, in other words the students surveyed had been influenced, rather than informed.

The only way that people can develop informed opinions and thus make intelligent decisions is by utilizing the best information available to them at the moment. The American mainstream media has failed the citizens of this country in this role. It consistently diminishes the importance of significant issues and enhances the superfluous. Most Americans are aware of this on some level, yet buy into the idea that we are often more collectively interested in the trivial than we are in the substantive, thus stories like the Scott Peterson saga are well known and disseminated and stories like the 100+ Israeli students arrested in the United States for espionage immediately following September 11th, 2001 are unfamiliar to the vast majority of American citizens and suppressed by the mainstream news media. The actual facts behind the “Israeli art student spy scandal,” are incredible, inconceivable and even earth-shattering, yet seem to be unknown to ninety-five percent of the American population, simply because the news media has dedicatedly avoided the issue. This self-evident refusal by the media, a veritable conspiracy in fact, to omit certain uncomfortable aspects of modern history in favor of the state of Israel can only have negative consequences, there is no upside, it is and will continue to be, until seriously addressed, a blight on the consciousness of the American people and a significant impediment in American foreign policy.

Footnotes

Rick Marin and T. Trent Gegax. Newsweek. Dec. 30 1996/ Jan. 6 1997, pp. 64-71.
Colin Powell speech, delivered at the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Berlin Germany, April 28, 2004. Speech transcripts accessed on the United States Department of State website, September 12, 2004. http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/31885.htm
Fox News' Bret Baier, Mike Emanuel, Ian McCaleb, Liza Porteus and The Associated Press contributed to this report. February 13, 2004. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,111324,00.html - accessed on 9/2/04
Ryan G. Anderson was convicted on September 3, 2004. Associated Press, as presented by the Fox News website, accessed on September 17, 2004. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,131264,00.html
As a former member of the United States Armored Cavalry with a “top secret” clearance I attest to this fact based upon personal experience. Any vulnerability inherent in the M1 Abrams main battle tank was long ago divulged and has been common knowledge to those interested for a decade.
Accessed on 9/2/04 http://www.keepmedia.com:/Register.do?oliID=225
My personal experience from having served in the United States Armored Cavalry, 3/2 ACR 1985 – 1988.
PROLIFERATION OF WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION — Assessing the Risks, a report by the U.S. Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, OTA-ISC-599 — Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, August 1993.
Sublette, Carey, “nuclear weapons frequently asked questions,” Accessed on 9/2/04 http://comfuture.com/hew/Nwfaq/Nfaq8.html
Associated Press, posted on the Fox News website, January 15, 2004. Accessed on 9/3/04 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,108569,00.html
Currently Pakistan is considered an ally of the United States, however it must be noted that Musharraf’s hold on power is tenuous and several attempts on his life have been made within the past twelve months by people the U.S. government considers “potential enemies.”
Karen Abbott. “Israeli Goes Free on Bail” Rocky Mountain News, January 13, 2003, Accessed on 9/3/02. http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_2571771,00.html and Karen Abbott. “DIA Arrest Tied to Nuke Control Law,” Rocky Mountain News, January 9, 2004.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_2563582,00.html See also Appendix I & II.
The Bail Schedules listed above are from the Los Angeles Superior Court, so bear in mind that these are only a few examples from a judicial district that is almost universally considered quite lenient as far as punishment and that these examples are used to do nothing more than to establish the fact that a $75,000 bail for selling nuclear weapon detonators to an unstable Islamic Republic is unrealistically and unbelievably low. As far as the one million dollar bail for murder, please bear in mind that a single nuclear weapon could conceivably kill millions of people. Site accessed on 9/3/04. http://www.lasuperiorcourt.org/bail/pdf/felony.pdf
As an example Meir Lansky in the 1970s and recently Vladimir Gusinsky, a Russian Oligarch wanted in Russia for fraud. Pravda. March 21, 2001. english.pravda.ru/accidents/2001/04/25/4133.html
This fact can be verified by conducting a search on the Fox News networks search engine by entering in “Asher Karni.” The Fox News website was accessed by this author September 2, 2004.
This fact can be verified by conducting a search on the Fox News networks search engine by entering in “Ryan G. Anderson.” The Fox News website was accessed by this author September 2, 2004.

Accessed on 9/4/04 http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2004/02/13/national_guard040213.html

This fact can be verified by conducting a search on the CBC search engine and entering in “Asher Karni,” the results will state: Your search - "Asher Karni" - did not match any documents.
No pages were found containing ""Asher Karni."
This can be verified by conducting a site search on CNN, entering in “Asher Karni,” and “Ryan G Anderson” respectively. (When this search is conducted, be sure to indicate that it is a CNN search, not a web search. The CNN article on Kahn and Musharraf was accessed 9/2/04. http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/01/18/pakistan.scientists.nukes/index.html

This can be verified by conducting a MSNBC site search and entering in the names “Asher Karni,” and “Ryan G. Anderson,” respectively.
Peter Apps, Reuters, Accessed on September 3, 2004 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5897543/ .Inexplicably, all charges against Johan Meyer were dropped without comment or explanation on September 8, 2004, five days after he was initially charged. International The News, September 9, 2004. Accessed on September 17, 2004. http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/sep2004-daily/09-09-2004/main/main15.htm
MSNBC staff report. February 13, 2004. Accessed September 3, 2004. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4252095/
Yehuda Abraham was charged in 2003 for being a part of a conspiracy to sell Russian shoulder fired surface to air missiles to FBI agents posing as terrorists, much in the same way that Ryan G. Anderson was caught. Interestingly Anderson was sentenced to life in prison and Abraham, for whatever reason, only faces five years imprisonment and a fine. (Ronnie Burke & Jennifer Styles, “Jeweler pleads guilty in missile sale case,” May 6, 2004. Accessed on 9/4/04. http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/03/30/missile.indictment/index.html) Abraham was in league with another individual by the name of Hemant Lakhani, described as a “Hindu businessman.”( Ronnie Burke & Jennifer Styles, “Jeweler pleads guilty in missile sale case,” May 6, 2004. Accessed on 9/4/04. http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/03/30/missile.indictment/index.html)
Interestingly there are parallels between the cases of Lakhani, Abraham and Karni, Anderson, namely that the media has essentially ignored in many respects Yehuda Abraham and concentrated instead on Hemant Lakhani. The very same phenomenon associated with bias in favor of Abraham is evident when “searches” are conducted on the major three news network websites, i.e. CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. (A CNN search reveals nine articles when “Hemant Lakhani,” is typed into the CNN search engine and six when “Yehuda Abraham,” is typed into the CNN search engine, yet with the exception of one article, the five others focus on Lakhani, mentioning Abraham in one or two sentences. A Fox News website search yields)
Additionally, Time Magazine published an article on August 25, 2004, entitled “How secure are our skies,” in which Lakhani’s name and details associated with the missile sale are prominently featured, yet Abraham’s name is conspicuously omitted. (Time Magazine. Josh Tyrangiel & Kristina Dell, “How secure are our skies?” August 25, 2003. http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1101030825-476407,00.html ).

Wikepedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed September 9, 2004. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_affair
James M. Ennes, Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs. “The Assault on the USS Liberty Still Covered up After 26 Years.” (June 1993) Pg. 19. Accessed on September 9, 2004. http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/0693/9306019.htm
Sworn Affidavit by Ward Boston, USN, JAG (Ret) Senior Counsel to the Court of Inquiry. October 9, 2003. Copy of Affidavit accessed on September 9, 2004 http://www.amenusa.org/liberty11.htm
Findley, Paul. They Dare to Speak Out. Chicago, IL: Lawrence Hill Books. 1989.
American Israel Political Affairs Committee website, accessed on September 9, 2004. http://www.aipac.org/documents/whoweare.html
Seymour Hersh. The Price of Power. Summit Books. (1983) Pg 322.
Pat Buchanan. The American Conservative. “Pollardites in the Pentagon.” September 8, 2004. Site accessed on September 10, 2004. http://www.theamericancause.org/patpentagon.htm
Yisrael Medad, Jerusalem Post. “Jonathon Pollard is my Purim Hero,” March. 1989. Site accessed on September 10, 2004. http://www.theamericancause.org/patpentagon.htm
Ariel Center for Policy Research. Biography of Yisrael Medad. Accessed on September 10, 2004. http://www.acpr.org.il/people/ymedad.html
Dina Kraft. Associated Press. October 26, 1998. Internet site accessed on September 10, 2004. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/792109/posts
Matt Spetalnik. Reuters. “Is Israel ‘Swing State’ That Could Tip U.S. Election?” September 9, 2004. Internet site accessed on September 9, 2004. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=6198741
The leaked DEA report can be downloaded on pdf here. http://antiwar.com/rep/DEA_Report_redactedxx.pdf

Dallas Peace Times. Accessed on September 11, 2004. http://www.dallaspeacecenter.org/dpt0112/isr-in-mex.htm Other sources can be found at http://english.pravda.ru/world/2001/10/13/17982.html, Translated articles of the Mexico City paper Cronica de Hoy can be found here. http://www.narconews.com/mexicancapitol1.html
Yossi Melman, Haaretz. Accessed on September 11, 2004. http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=75266&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y,
Neil Mackay. Sunday Herald Online. November 2. 2003. Accessed on September 11, 2004. http://ww1.sundayherald.com/37707
Hart and Teeter Research Companies survey, Retrieved April 28, 2002 from LEXIS NEXIS Academic Universe. Roper Center For Public Opinion Research. http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/form/academic/s_roper.html
Accession Number. 0282271, June 19th, 1997.

Spiro Agnew, in a speech delivered in Des Moines Iowa, November 13th, 1969
Media Monopoly: An Interview with Nicholas Johnson. Accessed on September 26, 2004. http://multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1995/05/mm0595_07.html

NBC News. January 12, 2004. Accessed on September 11, 2004. http://www.nbc10.com/news/2758598/detail.html
Curtis Maynard. “A Study Focusing on the Formation of Opinion and the Knowledge Associated with its Development.” (2002) Texas A&M University-Kingsville, Masters Thesis.
A multitude of articles and reports exist in reference to the established fact that these students were arrested for espionage and then deported to Israel without being prosecuted after September 11, 2004. Carl Cameron a Fox News correspondent did a 3 part series on these students, which has mysteriously vanished from Fox News archives, but fortunately was downloaded, saved and is currently available on thousands of other websites. An investigation into these students and what they are accused of doing will be fruitful for the reader and well worth doing. Some of the articles can be found at the following (non-mainstream) websites, including Carl Cameron’s suppressed Fox News series.. http://antiwar.com/israeli-files.php, http://www.100777.com/node/view/180. The leaked DEA report can be downloaded on pdf here. http://antiwar.com/rep/DEA_Report_redactedxx.pdf