Defenstration, that is.

While not bashing, let's also not forget another painful chapter - Jonathan Pollard's treason.

"... one of the most devastating cases of espionage in US history" during which Pollard stole over "one million classified documents". (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7181277.stm)

And yet, every few years there is a move to pardon him or commute his sentence.

Do these guys not remember who FedExed them M48s and F-4s back in 73?

Answer: Because George Mitchell is unbiased...

The problem with some of us is that we fail to realize that we do have people from within our fold like Freeman, Zbigniew Brzezinski etc., who have a slight disdain of democracy, and some admiration for the way authoritarian style regimes crack down on civilians to “control their populations.”

Just read some of their books and you’ll get the hint.

Given Dennis Blair's conduct during the East Timor civilian dissident massacre in the 90's, his defense of Freeman is understandable.

This point is at the very heart of the problem progressives present to those they are trying to bring to their side.

When faced with those within their own ranks whose true goal is to attain power, that would only use their agenda to lessen freedom and diminish personal choice, they will side with their own even when it means they diminish the very values they claim to espouse.

If liberals allow these few to attain leadership within their movement, then they will lose the moral high ground to those they oppose and the facts will become immaterial.

If the charges leveled at Freeman were false, then to disprove them should have been done easily. If not, how does his appointment legitimize or further the progressive movement in the eyes of others who have not chosen a side in the greater debate?

It certainly has been an interesting exercise in applied info-warfare by AIPAC-proxies, to say the least.

"Navy intelligence types in particular have been wary of Israel since the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty in 1967"

This is a joke right? The most powerful navy in the world is wary of Israel for a single mistake that happened 40 years ago?

"the relatively minor post Freeman was getting"

Head of the group that creates the NIE is a minor post? Remember the earthquake that happened when the NIE was released that mistakenly said Iran had stopped it's nuclear bomb program.

from an ally, even when hurtful.

Your blog clock is in another time zone. It is 6:04 here in the East...what time is it on the defensive line?

"China ‘Worried’ About Safety of U.S. Treasuries" NYT 13 March....Would CNAS be better prepared for Defense with PhDs in Finance and maybe the Madoff cabal than the usual suspects from the Clauswitz cults?

if we continue to blindly support Israel, even when after it violates all that we consider human rights in the US, and would not tolerate such behavior even against GITMO detainees, from our own officials or any other country- we will continue to have terrorism in the world. I had some hope for Obama- but I watch as one good candidate after another for foreign policy be 'removed'- I dont see much hope in our relations getting better with the Middle East or other countries.
Gen Zeniy who was a great candidate for an ambassador to Iraq, was removed as he said it as it was- he knew we are dealing with criminals straight off the terrorist list as the 'democratic' government of Iraq, is only going to increase and continue the wrong path we have been on and will be on that has destroyed that country.

A couple of points here:

Mr. Ricks starts out talking about Charles Freeman and his links to China and Saudi Arabia. Yes, those who criticize Israel get jumped on for doing so. Those who criticize Saudi Arabia also get jumped on. So do those who criticize China. Those who criticize the Palestinians get jumped on as well. The criticisms of Palestinians are often punctuated with death threats. If you criticize a country chances are someone will speak up and call you stupid for doing so. If Mr. Freeman can't take that sort of heat he shouldn't be in the position anyway. As for the links, it does not matter if the source is Newsweek, the NY Times, or Israeli Propaganda Weekly. If the information presented is accurate then complaining about where it came from is just dumb. The question that should be asked is if those links constitute a critical conflict of interests. My guess is that they did and that is why he is no longer being considered for that position.

I read the article sited by Mr. Ricks. It was a good article. I think Mr. Bennet could have spent more time on how the reporters he talked about viewed the Iraqis. He is correct that many soldiers are disgusted by the level of corruption they saw. My one encounter with the Iraqi police left me furious and disgusted. My thinking is that many western reports might feel the same. Combine this with the fact that many stringers they used turned out to be working for the insurgents and the number of times reporters got burned by this and it explains why the reporters stopped interviewing Iraqis. They no longer trusted them enough to interview them. Unfortunately, integrity is a virtue that most Iraqis value but do not practice. This is not a PC view, but my experiences in the Middle East have left me less than multicultural.

Bringing up the USS Liberty incident brings out the conspiracy theorists. These theories tend to fall apart on the "who benefits?" question. Israel, engaged in a desperate two front war, deliberately commits an attack on their biggest supporter? Does this make any sense? A larger view of the context (Israel did not know it was there, an Egyptian military vessel was also in the area, the history of using false flag operations in the area) says to me it was an accident from a number of factors that made it accident waiting to happen. Welcome to War 101. Bad things happen.

As time went by, more facts came out that totally undercut the 'accidental incident' story. The fact that intel tapes that recorded the Israeli pilots identifying the ship as American gradually leaked out. In fact, one of the Isreali pilots refused to attack the ship and was arrested upon landing. The story about mis-identifying LIBERTY with an old Egyptian ship doesn't make sense, since the ships look different and LIBERTY was much larger. The Isrealis would have had to have been utterly incompetent to have mis-identified the ship, and nobody thinks they are incompetent. I was a midshipman at Annapolis when the attack occurred and recall the anger and disgust against the Isrealis for the attack and the lies afterwards. The why of the attack is still unknown, but that it was a deliberate attack has to be acknowledged.