Saddam Hussein has finally been indicted by the Iraqi Special Tribunal, for a July 1982 massacre of some 150 Shi'ites at Dujail, a town north of Baghdad. But the ex-dictator's lawyer Giovanni di Stefano is demanding that the trial be relocated from Baghdad to another country. "Baghdad couldn't even prevent the recent kidnapping and killing of the Egyptian ambassador. There are also many Iraqis who want to see Saddam executed and many others who want to see him freed. That means the defense and prosecution would both be in danger there," di Stefano said. He also said the fact that Saddam has been held in custody for 548 days without being formally charged is a violation of international law. "The whole point of the Iraq war was replace Saddam and everything he stood for. But there is a total disregard of the law there now," he said. (UK Guardian, July 18)

The Project on Defense Alternatives sends the following press release:

New proposal outlines "near-total" troop withdrawal by September 2006;
Early exit from Iraq depends on political compromise

The United States could safely withdraw almost all its forces from Iraq within a year or so without further destabilizing the country, according to a 19 July proposal by the Project on Defense Alternatives (PDA), a US-based think-tank. Progress toward that end requires a significant political compromise with the Sunni community and with Iraq's neighbors, however.

A Colorado Republican congressman makes some really helpful comments:

Congressman Says U.S. Could 'Take Out' Islamic Holy Sites

July 18, 2005 1:08 p.m. EST

Christina Ficara - All Headline News Staff Reporter
Orlando, FL (AHN) - Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) told WFLA-AM in Orlando, the U.S. could "take out" Islamic holy sites if Muslim fundamentalist terrorists attacked the country with nuclear weapons.

Rep. Tancredo made his remarks Friday, yet, his spokesman stressed he was only speaking hypothetically.

According to a Yahoo report, talk show host Pat Campbell asked the Littleton Republican how the country should respond if terrorists struck several U.S. cities with nuclear weapons.

More on the spread of anti-Semitism in the FSU:

Wave of anti-Semitic articles seen tied to vote for Ukraine Parliament
By Vladimir Matveyev
July 17, 2005

KIEV, Ukraine, July 17 (JTA) — A new wave of anti-Semitic outbursts by public figures is surging in Ukraine.

Last week, several newspapers of nationalist orientation published appeals by members of the Ukrainian Writers Union against the “Judaization" of the union and in favor of the expulsion of the group’s Jewish members.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) runs a July 13 piece from the Florida Times-Union, "Muslim Leaders Condemning Terror to Deaf?" in which columnist Mark Woods speaks to CAIR's new chairman Parvez Ahmed and finds that such Muslim condemnations are in fact widespread—but never seem to be sufficient:

There are twin moral and intellectual traps most commentators are falling into vis-a-vis the London bombings. The first is the terrifyingly myopic and widespread consensus which is emerging that the attack "wasn't about Iraq." The increasingly predictable Christopher Hitchens writes in "The Anticipated Attack: Don't Blame Iraq for the Bombings" (Slate magazine):

A contributor to the TPMCafe blog offers an interesting commentary on the 7-7 attacks:

Muslim Civil War - Second Front

By thibaud

Overlooked by most media outlets (but not by London bloggers) in the Edgware Road and Aldgate bombings is the very interesting fact that all the bombs were set off in or near the most heavily muslim neighborhoods in the UK -- or in western Europe, for that matter. One can see why the bombers avoided Gleneagles; as to logical London targets, one could conceivably argue that Whitehall or Westminster are too tough to penetrate for even the most ingenious death cultist.

But why on earth would muslims set off so many bombs in their own mini-capital, as it were?

The offices of the Oaxaca daily Noticias continues to be under siege by loyalists of the state's entrenched political machine—yet, amazingly, the paper continues to publish. This July 15 report from Dos Mundos, Kansas City's bilingual newspaper:

Journalists held hostage in Oaxaca

By Mischa Byruck

The employees have been unable to leave the building for twenty days. Reporters without Borders, an international non-profit organization that protects the rights of journalists worldwide, immediately condemned the occupation, stating that the “strike" is “the act of persons external to the paper and is just a means used by the local authority to silence it."