FLASH!: HRW’s Mark Garlasko Unqualified to Judge Gaza Beach?

(Before going further, I don't personally know the details of Mark Garlasko's personnel file at the Defense Intelligence Agency, nor do I personally know the person who claims to have worked with Garlasko there. The sources through whom I received this are known to me as sane and credible, but until more is revealed the question remains. I urge them and the DIA, and Garlasko and HRW to completely address this quickly.)

Mark Garlasko, a day after the incident at the Gaza beach, under the eyes and help of Palestinians, contradicted the detailed results and evidence of the Israeli investigation. Never mind that his “physical evidence” was different than what appeared on film the day before. Never mind that it well may have been placed there for him by the Palestinians, not an unknown activity of theirs.

Now, never mind, that Mark Garlasko’s technical qualifications to make such a judgment may be questionable. The world’s media echoed him.

A yet unnamed military intelligence person who worked with Mark Garlasko in the prewar targeting effort at the Defense Intelligence Agency says of Garlasko, a friend of his reports in an email I received, Garlarsko

“is not technically qualified to point to a depression in the sand on Gaza beach and state uncategorically that it was caused by an Israeli 155 MM round. Why? He had no scientific training required to do bomb damage assessessment – typically a USAF function…”

Mark Garlasko is billed as:

the senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch (HRW), and is HRW’s resident expert on battle damage assessment, military operations, and interrogations. Marc also leads HRW’s work on Abu Ghurayb, civilian military contractors, and non-lethal weapons.

Before coming to HRW, Marc spent seven years in the Pentagon as a senior intelligence analyst covering Iraq. His last position there was chief of high-value targeting during the Iraq War in 2003. Marc was on the Operation Desert Fox (Iraq) Battle Damage Assessment team in 1998, led a Pentagon Battle Damage Assessment team to Kosovo in 1999, and recommended thousands of aimpoints on hundreds of targets during operations in Iraq and Serbia. He also participated in over 50 interrogations as a subject matter expert.

I could not find a bio of Garlasko at the Human Rights Watch website, so this one from MotherJones is similar to the billing he’s given in other publications.

Very impressive, on the surface, if true. Now, there’s some real doubt that Mr. Garlasko should explain.

Mr. Garlasko’s rush to judgment on the Marines at Haditha (“What happened at Haditha appears to be outright murder.”) was admitted by him that he had “no idea of the facts.”

Is that so again, and shouldn’t he and Human Rights Watch quickly clarify whether he is similarly shooting off his mouth and the U.S. and Israel unjustly?