Secrets, There Are None
Those who pose as wholly objective and professional in their capacity as critics are sometimes impressively oblivious to the fact that their personal conduct may serve to belie their true objectivity, and thus give rise to not only aspersions on their professionalism, but question the reliability of their conclusions. Human Rights Watch, like other such purportedly-human rights NGOs who advertise themselves as anointed to cast judgement in this world of up-heaved political and ideological norms, seeks to cast blame where they may.It must be horribly discomfiting when their proudly 'senior military expert' is discovered to be a clandestine admirer of fascism. His German heritage might have enticed him to look a little further into the mechanisms and military aspirations of the Third Reich, as a professional military historian. But this was hardly done objectively, to satisfy a historian's curiosity. This man invested his social-recreational pastime in collecting Nazi-era memorabilia in a fascinated dance of admiration for what had been.
He appeared to revel in his fairly indiscreet role of admirer of Nazi paraphernalia. Self-admittedly, a peculiar hobby for one such as he; senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, whose main preoccupation appears to be the vilification of Israel through the purported uncovering of deliberate national misdeeds, amounting to 'war crimes' committed against neighbours who exult in un-neighbourly conduct complementary to the intent to persuade Israel to vacate her territory.
As the result of one intrepid blogger's search, it has been revealed on the web blog Mere Rhetoric - the investigative and revelatory tool of blogger Omri Ceren - that Marc Garlasco's private emotive passion is to possess Nazi artifacts. As a military analyst for Human Rights Watch he has held a responsible position that resulted in credibility when he attacked Israel's human rights record which he personally revealed to be wanting. The outcry resulting from Mere Rhetoric's reportage has caused no little embarrassment to HRW.
Which has submitted to the inevitable, however unhappily, by suspending Mr. Garlasco's position as their senior military expert. His portrayal of himself as an innocent collector, fascinated by items commemorating Nazi Germany's near-successful attempt to change the world, not quite understanding what all the commotion is about, and that he really, truly, had no real regard for fascism, merely a compelling interest in history seems ingenuous at best, and an outright falsification of the truth at the very core.
How can anyone believe anything he claims to be fact, given the generosity of his regard for military fascism, despite his earnest denials? Getting his thrills out of communicating with other like-minded memorabilia-fanciers through using a Nazi-loving identifier like "Flak88", posting his impression of how indescribably "cool" leather SS jackets appear to him, giving him a delicious chill by wearing one, does not quite describe the at-a-remove historian.
One whose dedicated knowledge and entrancement with that period of history - his own time-detached involvement - had enabled him to authoritatively write a tome resulting from his "years of study by one of the leading experts on the Flak Badges of the Wehrmacht". Of course this does not, in and of itself, make him guilty of lusting after the Nazi era, and wishing to have been an integral part of changing world history through military might, but it does somewhat cast doubt on his character and his values.
Having said which, that classic old "people in glass houses" puts some perspective on the man's reports for HRW, in their one-sided condemnation of Israel, and HRW's zeal in pursuing that particular agenda. Their inadequate vetting of their expert investigator may or may not reveal their own lack of assiduous determination to ensure that they are themselves innocent of sinister intent when it comes to the accusations they appear to revel in levelling against Israel.
Particularly so, since this is by no means the first instance of their having hired an 'expert' whose past associations have coloured them stridently anti-Israel. So, what else is new in the world of bigoted hypocrisy?
Labels: Anti-Semitism, Israel, Political Realities
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, September 17, 2009
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