Will Hamas Be Held Accountable for War Crimes?
Not Likely.

by Khaled Abu Toameh • August 25, 2014 at 5:00 am

What Khaled Mashaal forgot to mention was that Hamas and the Islamic State do have at least one thing in common: they both carry out extrajudicial executions as a means of terrorizing and intimidating those who stand in their way or who dare to challenge their terrorism.

According to Hamas's logic, all members of the Palestinian Authority government are "traitors" who should be dragged to public squares to be shot by firing squads. According to the same logic, Mahmoud Abbas himself should be executed for maintaining security coordination with and talking to Israelis.

As for the two executed women, the sources said that their only fault was that they had been observed asking too many questions about Palestinians who were killed in airstrikes.

Masked Hamas members (dressed in black) prepare to execute local Palestinians who they claim spied for Israel, Aug. 22, 2014, in Gaza. (Image source: Reuters video screenshot)

Hamas's extrajudicial executions of Palestinians suspected of "collaboration" with Israel are a sign that the Islamist movement is beginning to panic in the wake of Israel's successful targeting of its leaders.

But the public executions by firing squad of more than 26 suspected "collaborators" in the Gaza Strip could also turn many Palestinians against Hamas.

Hamas has banned the publication of the names of the executed Palestinians "out of concern for the social fabric" of Palestinian society.

In other words, Hamas is afraid that revealing the identities of the executed "collaborators" would spark outrage in the Gaza Strip and possible calls for revenge, especially from the families of the victims.

Hamas says that the suspected "collaborators" were brought before firing squads after being tried before special "revolutionary tribunals" consisting of security experts and officers.

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The Truth about Ukraine

by Stephen Blank and Peter Huessy • August 25, 2014 at 4:00 am

It now appears that the plan was for these terrorists to shoot down a Russian passenger flight over the Ukraine in order to create a casus belli [cause for war].

Putin repeatedly claims that Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons as a "de-escalatory measure" even against non-nuclear states.

The evidence that this war was preplanned is overwhelming. The planning for this Ukrainian operation started in 2006, when Putin offered to "guarantee Crimea's territory."

The forces fighting in Kiev consist not mainly of "separatists" or rebels, but of trained Russian army, intelligence and paramilitary officers, as well as Russian and some Ukrainian "volunteers" recruited by Moscow.

Putin would incite disturbances in Crimea, then graciously offer to take over Crimea to solve the problems.

For the Russians, and particularly for Putin, Ukraine can have no future other than as a Russian colony. This is indeed a phased invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. did not accept Russian aggression before; it should not accept it now.

Russian-backed separatists parade Ukrainian army prisoners of war through the streets of Donetsk, Aug. 24, 2014. (Image source: RT YouTube video screenshot)

If "truth is the first casualty of war," Russia's war against Ukraine, illegally launched by Russia's President, Vladimir Putin, is no exception.

One of the saddest developments of this war is that on all political sides, in both Europe and the U.S., an entire army of Putin defenders has emerged, for whom the United Stares can do little right and Russia can do little wrong.

On the "right," for instance, Patrick Buchanan has discovered that Russia's President Vladimir Putin is supporting both Christian values and U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. Consequently he asserts we should not be worried about his illegal annexation of Crimea and aggression in Eastern Ukraine in violation of the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, in which Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for Russian and American assurances that the use of force or threats of military action would not be taken against it.

The facts, however, are against Buchanan.

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