Progressive veterans group VoteVets.org has received thousands of signatures from concerned citizens, veterans and military families rejecting “neocon smears” against former Republican senator Chuck Hagel.

Bill Kristol and his Weekly Standard magazine has led the campaign against Hagel’s potential nomination as the next Defense Secretary. They and other neocons claim the Nebraska Republican is anti-Semitic and anti-Israel and they have attacked Hagel for issuing caution about attacking Iran over its nuclear program.

But Hagel now has defenders coming from all across the ideological spectrum, from a bipartisan group of former national security advisers and former senior military brass to former U.S. ambassadors and a number of prominent journalists, including those from the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, the Daily Beast and the New Republic.

And today, the VoteVets.org petition piles on in defense of Hagel:

We, the undersigned, strongly reject the neocon smears being launched against Vietnam Veteran and former Senator Chuck Hagel. We will strongly back his nomination for Secretary of Defense, should you choose to nominate him. In fact, we urge you to not be deterred from nominating him, simply because of the right-wing noise machine.

The reason they’re swiftboating Senator Hagel is clear. Chuck Hagel, as a Vietnam Veteran, would put troops first. He has a record of challenging neocon dreams of preemptive use of force – and winning that debate. He has a record of challenging wasteful Pentagon spending, taking on the military-industrial complex, to ensure our defense dollars are responsibly spent on equipment we actually need. As Defense Secretary, he would do the same, and thoroughly embarrass and expose Kristol and his neocon buddies.

It would be unfortunate for our Troops and our nation if we allowed neocons to rob us of a potentially great Secretary of Defense. We urge you to not give in to them.

In a statement released this afternoon, VoteVets.org says that more than 12,000 have signed the petition so far, including more than 8,000 veterans and military families. VoteVets says it and the petition’s signatories “are standing up for former Senator Chuck Hagel, and urging President Obama to stand up to right-wing swiftboating of him.”

The New York Times is reporting that Maj. Gen. Abdul Aziz Jassem al-Shallal — the head of Syria’s military police — has defected from the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

“I, General Abdel Aziz Jassem al-Shallal, commander of Syrian military police, announce that I am defecting from the regime army, to join the people’s revolution,” he said in a publicly broadcast video recording. Shallal attributed his defection to his view that the Syrian military had abdicated its duty to protect the Syrian people and devolved into “gangs of killing and destruction.” There are also reports that the former general has taken shelter in Turkey, joining other military defectors who have sided with opposition forces.

Shallal is the highest-ranking military official to defect from the regime, joining a long line of military and civilian leaders — including the country’s prime minister — to break ties with Assad. In his statement, Shallal also asserted that, “there are other high-ranking officers who want to defect, but the situation is not suitable for them to declare defection.”

To date, thousands have died in the Assad regime’s crackdown and more than 500,000 Syrians have fled to neighboring countries. U.S. and other Western officials have repeatedly called on Assad to step down, and warned the embattled president against using chemical weapons against his people.

Four former national security advisers in a letter to the editor in the Washington Post published on Tuesday denounced what New York TImes columnist Tom Friedman described as “disgusting” attacks on former Republican senator Chuck Hagel and praised Hagel’s prior service to the United States.

Responding to a Dec. 21 Post story on Hagel’s potential nomination to be Secretary of Defense, the former national security advisers, James L. Jones (Obama), Brent Scowcroft (Ford, H.W Bush) , Zbigniew Brzezinski (Carter) and Frank Carlucci (Reagan), said they “strongly object…to the attacks on the character of former senator Chuck Hagel,” whom they called “a man of unshakable integrity and wisdom who has served his country in the most distinguished manner in peace and war”:

He is a rare example of a public servant willing to rise above partisan politics to advance the interests of the United States and its friends and allies. Moreover, it is damaging to the quality of our civic discourse for prospective Cabinet nominees to be subjected to such vicious attacks on their character before an official nomination.

This type of behavior will only discourage future prospective nominees from public service when our country badly needs quality leadership in government.

Scowcroft and 10 other retired senior U.S. military officials, including William Fallon and Anthony Zinni, signed a letter last week saying that Hagel would be “a strong leader at the Pentagon” and that he’s “eminently qualified for the job.” That letter came on the heals of one just days prior in which nine former U.S. Ambassadors, including Ryan Crocker, signed a letter praising Hagel’s qualifications for the top Pentagon job.

The high-level support for Hagel comes after the “neocon smear machine” recently began a campaign to tar Hagel as an anti-Semite and anti-Israel and not sufficiently militaristic toward Iran after news reports that he is President Obama’s top choice to succeed Leon Panetta.

Friedman defended Hagel against the backlash in his Times column today. “I think he would make a fine secretary of defense — precisely because some of his views are not ‘mainstream.’”

In its Dec. 21 article on Hagel, the Post quoted Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) calling the former Nebraska Republican an “excellent candidate” for Pentagon chief. “Most senators who served with Chuck would be favorable to his nomination,” Lugar said.

The Atlantic’s Robert Wright notes today that Hagel has now drawn wide ranging support from across the ideological spectrum. “[B]y and large this fight is between some neocons (plus a few reliable supporters) and everybody else,” he writes, adding: “So it’s in Obama’s hands. There’s a lot at stake here — not just whether McCarthyite smears will be allowed to succeed, but whether Obama, in the wake of the Susan Rice episode, will now get a reputation as someone who caves whenever he faces resistance.”

(Photo: Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski – Getty)