Marc Garlasco is a piece of work, as they say.

Garlasco is a senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch.

Human Rights Watch is one of the world’s leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights.

Garlasco specializes in battle damage assessment, military operations, and interrogations.

Here's Garlasco on Iraq (from an Aug 2008 60 Minutes interview with Scott Pelley):

"There's this macabre kind of calculus that the military goes through on every air strike, where they try to figure out how many dead civilians is dead bad guy worth," says Marc Garlasco, who knows the calculus of civilian casualties as well as anyone.

At the Pentagon, Garlasco was chief of high value targeting at the start of the Iraq war. He told 60 Minutes how many civilians he was allowed to kill around each high-value target -- targets like Saddam Hussein and his leadership.

"Our number was 30. So, for example, Saddam Hussein. If you're gonna kill up to 29 people in a strike against Saddam Hussein, that's not a problem," Garlasco explains. "But once you hit that number 30, we actually had to go to either President Bush, or Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld."

Garlasco says, before the invasion of Iraq, he recommended 50 air strikes aimed at high-value targets -- Iraqi officials.

But he says none of the targets on the list were actually killed. Instead, he says, "a couple of hundred civilians at least" were killed.

Here's Garlasco on Afghanistan, from the same interview:

"I don't think people really appreciate the gymnastics that the U.S. military goes through in order to make sure that they're not killing civilians," Garlasco points out.

"If so much care is being taken why are so many civilians getting killed?" Pelley asks.

"Because the Taliban are violating international law,” says Garlasco, “and because the U.S. just doesn't have enough troops on the ground. You have the Taliban shielding in people's homes. And you have this small number of troops on the ground. And sometimes the only thing they can do is drop bombs.”

"Human Rights Watch" -- think about it.

If he is a distraction from HRW's reporting on the crimes against the Palestinians, then he has to go.

It really is that simple.

Cobban seems to have jumped the shark on this one. In her latest update she says this:

As a Quaker, I find it very troubling that anyone spends much of their free time collecting "military memorabilia", from any military. I do believe this represents an unhealthy obsession with matters military. If my son had done this in his teens I would have been concerned enough. If he'd continued to obsessively pursue such a hobby till his 30s I would be very seriously worried.

She certainly has the right to feel that way, but not to project her phobias on others.

I know many pilots who devote time, energy and money to their hobby of restoring and flying WWII aircraft, and who have great respect for the skill and accomplishments of the Luftwaffe. They'd restore Messerschmidts and Fokkers just as lovingly if they could get their hands on them. Some, who can afford it, fly MIGS. Let me tell you, their love of these aircraft and the lore surrounding them in no way diminishes their fervor for American values.

Ms. Cobban's fear of all things military undermines her standing to comment on Mr. Garlasco's interest in military things. If you took her quote above to it's logical conclusion, she'd appear to prefer to have someone with absolutely no knowledge of military matters occupying Mr. Garlasco's position.

[Note: I do not know whether Mr. Garlasco is or is not qualified to hold his position. But he should be judged on the merits of his performance, not on his avocational interests. We haven't yet become a thought police state, I hope.]

Seems to me this is about personal preferences and not about any substantive issue at all. Sometimes people just need to butt out of other people's affairs. Mind your own business is a good rule in most instances.

For all this guy's unsavory idiosyncracies, just who would you have as HRW's "senior military affairs specialist"? The Dalai Lama? If you need information on pre-packaged junk pastry, ask Little Debbie. If you need analysis of depredation, you ask someone who has first-hand knowlege of depredation.

"HRW should merge with J street. Real pro-Israel types, by definition, don't consider Israel guilty of the crimes against the Palestinians."
Oh please, JStreet are AIPAC lite. Pro-American types need to kick the entire Israel lobby into touch. Israel should use it's Diplomats not it's lobby and American citizens masquerading as anything else except their attachments to a foreign country that is not our own.
National Jewish Leadership Advocacy Day on Iran, lobbying an American president to make more war in the interests of Israeli expansionism. More American blood and treasure for Israel, manoeuvred by their lobby's and their Advocates of Jewish America. How odd, I thought their democratically elected representatives were their, like my, advocates.
The only way America can save itself from these nutters is to ignore the BS about anti Semitism or the other smears they use to shut down debate. We need to say clearly - If you want to put Israel or Timbuktu, first, emigrate.
Iraq wasn't about oil, they can't make the case for that but lucky them they knock down anyone smart enough to question them as "anti Semites." Most of know that These guys pushing our President and the Europeans to bomb Iran. We have to resist and we have to take them on to make sure nothing like Iraq and Afghanistan ever happen again. The Israel lobby is breaking the back of America, they seem to have about as much mercy for us as they do for the Iranians.
I would love for more American Jews to speak out and respect those who do but we should not replace one agent of a foreign country with another. That's just repackaging.

BluePearl, Abe Foxman said "Anti Americanism is Anti Semitism," guess that means we're all Israeli's now. We are two different countries, America needs to reestablish our independence to better serve our own national interests. If we had done this long ago, my bet is it would have worked out better for ordianry Israeli's and Palestinians.