Com­ment: Dur­ing the 2006 Lebanon and 2008–2009 Gaza Wars, the world has been treat­ed to sto­ries of Israeli mil­i­tary atroc­i­ties, large­ly debunked in the wake of their dis­clo­sure.

The “author­i­ta­tive” source for many of these sto­ries is Marc Gar­las­co, a for­mer Pen­ta­gon ana­lyst who dis­coursed on mil­i­tary affairs for Human Rights Watch.

Gar­las­co recent­ly resigned his posi­tion after dis­clo­sure that he was an avid col­lec­tor of Nazi mem­o­ra­bil­ia, hav­ing (among oth­er things) authored a cof­fee-table book (pic­tured at right) reveal­ing an almost porno­graph­ic fas­ci­na­tion with the Third Reich’s mil­i­tary. Gar­las­co’s grand­fa­ther fought for Hitler.

Gar­las­co also post­ed on the inter­net under the moniker “Flak 88.” The 88-mil­lime­ter rifle was Ger­many’s pri­ma­ry anti-air­craft weapon. “88” is also a code-term with which Nazis can com­mu­ni­cate their polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tions clan­des­tine­ly. H is the eighth let­ter of the alpha­bet and “88” is under­stood to be code for “Heil Hitler.”

“Is HRW Inves­ti­ga­tor Gar­las­co An Avid Col­lec­tor of Nazi Para­pher­na­lia?”; Snap­shots: a Cam­era Blog; 9/08/2009.

Excerpt:  There are two Marc Gar­las­cos on the Inter­net. One is a top human rights inves­ti­ga­tor who, hav­ing joined Human Rights Watch after sev­er­al years with the Pen­ta­gon, has become known for his shrill attacks on Israel. The oth­er is a Marc Gar­las­co who’s obsessed with the col­or and pageantry of Nazism, has pub­lished a detailed 430 page book on Nazi war para­pher­na­lia, and par­tic­i­pates in forums for Nazi sou­venir col­lec­tors.

Both Marc Gar­las­cos were born on Sep­tem­ber 4, 1970. Both have Ernst as their mid­dle name. Both live in New York, NY. Both have a mater­nal grand­fa­ther who fought for the Nazis. I’ve put links and screen­shots on all this after the jump, and you can click through for full-sized ver­sions. It’s hard to escape the con­clu­sion that both Marc Gar­las­cos are the same per­son.

Blog­gers and activists con­cerned about Israel have been baf­fled and frus­trat­ed by the first Gar­las­co almost since he joined HRW. On his pub­lic pho­tog­ra­phy site he posts gra­tu­itous Pales­tin­ian and Lebanese death porn in between gal­leries of cute West­ern-look­ing kids play­ing soc­cer (no link — keep­ing his kids out of it). He pro­vides a seem­ing­ly nev­er-end­ing stream of inter­views to all kinds of out­lets, where he spins tales about osten­si­ble Israeli atroc­i­ties. The only prob­lem is that many of these tales — per Soc­cer Dad and Isra­Pun­dit and Elder of Ziy­on and NGO Mon­i­tor and CAMERA and LGF — are biased and inac­cu­rate. That does­n’t stop Gar­las­co from putting them into the kind of HRW reports that make their way into inter­na­tion­al anti-Israel con­dem­na­tions and aca­d­e­m­ic anti-Israel dis­ser­ta­tions.

Then there’s the sec­ond Marc Gar­las­co, who I caught wind of from Elder of Ziy­on. Elder had just fin­ished tear­ing apart anoth­er one of HRW Gar­las­co’s anti-Israel reports when he found the Ama­zon pro­file of col­lec­tor Gar­las­co. This Gar­las­co’s Ama­zon book reviews show a near­ly obses­sive knowl­edge of Nazi-era Luft­waffe Flak and Army Flak. A lit­tle more search­ing revealed that he’s writ­ten a gigan­tic book on the sub­ject that retails for over $100. He reg­u­lar­ly par­tic­i­pates in forums about Nazi medals under the han­dle Flak 88, where he posts gal­leries of his prizes and admires what oth­ers have man­aged to col­lect. On those forums he uses the email marc@garlasco.com, which points to a fam­i­ly geneal­o­gy site he set up in 2002. . . .