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And why does army builder let me choose them as allies for the Tau?

Is it a glitch?

Can I really use them?

http://uk.games-workshop.com/eldar/harlequins/1/

there a throw back from second ed, they have somepretty nasty units in a harlequin army, they can be allies too any army exect for chao, and DH and WH but i do beleive necrons can take them for some werid reason??? i could be wrong...

Their rules are all explained in the link above. For their fluff, you'd be better off in the 'Fluff for Nutters' forum.

The Harlequins are a sect of the Eldar. For an overly simplified explination, they are killer clowns from outer space. A more detailed explination is that they are the Eldar historians. They preserve a vast expance of Eldar knowldege via highly ritualized plays (for lack of a better short discription). They are the masters of the web ways and are the only ones who really can claim that they know them all. Suposidly deep in the web ways is the black library which is said to contain all of the technology the Eldar had from before the fall. Since they have almost complete control over the web ways, they can come and go almost as they please all over the galaxy and as Eldar they are rather carpacious and random (or at least that's how they seem). They are allowed as allies for just about anyone (save chaos) since almost any battle anywhere could hold an interest to them for one reason or another.

The explanation offered in their old codex is that they're not precisley aliies, they just happen to be in the same place, and working towards a similar end as the army they're allied with.

More specifically, they're allowed as allies for anyone against chaos, because their first priority is fighting chaos. The rules are experimental, however, which is just as well since they're weak as hell. Gav Thorpe took people's criticisms of his work being overpowered a bit too much to heart, it seems.

Adding to what Phoenix has already said...

The Harlequins travel all the Eldar craftworlds and colonies, and presumably to Cormorragh, and perform elaborate dance/theater pieces on the history of the Eldar and their current state of affairs. They're especially concerned with Chaos and the Eldar's predicament with Slaanesh. The first piece of Harlequin fluff (from WD #104 or something) described them presenting a disturbing play about the Fall of the Eldar to a Craftworld. Harlequins also fight chaos in a more immediate way, as an army of close combat acrobats. This is why they can ally with anyone but chaos: they just watch to see when they can lend a hand and pop up unexpected.

Harlies make their base on a secret craftworld called the Black Library. It's hidden in the webway rather than real space, and contains the secrets of the universe or somesuch cr@p. It figured into the Eye of Terror campaign: Inquisitor Czevak, probably the only human who's ever seen the Black Library, is kidnapped by Ahriman from the Thousand Sons in hopes that Czevak will lead him to the Library and there Ahriman will find a way to turn his Tzeentch marines back to flesh and blood (and make their rules stop sucking so hard).

The rules available for download aren't as hardcore as earlier editions. The current (and experimental, even like a decade years after it first popped up in Citadel Journal) codex makes the Harlies hit hard but die fast.

Evil spirits.