I don’t think we should jump to any conclusions over this:
Marc Garlasco, HRW’s “senior military analyst” and a frequent critic of Israel…as disclosed by Omri at Mere Rhetoric, has an interesting avocation: he writes about and collects Nazi paraphernalia. He has contributed almost 8,000 posts to a Nazi web forum called Wehrmacht Awards under the handle “Flak88,” with his collection of swastikas and Nazi medals all lovingly photographed and posted online. Garlasco’s Nazi hobby is actually quite ambitious: he wrote a 400-page book on Nazi military awards, and his car’s license plate is personalized-it reads “Flak88.” A Nazi-memorabilia hobby sure is a strange one for a professional human-rights activist to have. Are there any senior staffers at PETA who moonlight as collectors of fur coats and leg-hold traps? Garlasco must know how odd this looks because he maintains a photography website that contains pictures of many diverse things-but no tip-off that one of his favorite photography subjects is . . . Nazi medals.
Yes HRW’s military researcher, Marc Garlasco, is also an avid collector of Nazi military memorabilia. And yes, Marc Garlasco has been behind some of the most explosive charges against the Israeli Defense Forces in the Gaza operation from January known as Cast Lead. But hey. Sometimes a swastika is just a swastika. There are plenty of non-white supremacists who just admire the craftmanship of old SS war medals. My great uncle Lou had some Nazi memorabilia of his own, including a mint-condition Nazi flag that my mother keeps in a closet at home, but he got that off a dead Nazi (maybe a friend of Garlasco’s grandfather). I’m just saying, let’s not jump to any conclusions.
