Top general to urge Iraq troop cut  —  Advice by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs poses a potential clash with supporters of the buildup.  —  WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is expected to advise President Bush to reduce the U.S. force in Iraq next year by almost half …

Fox-Backed Democrat Debate Called Off  —  Sept. 23 Debate Will Not Be Held; Major Candidates Had Been Planning To Skip  —  (AP) Fox News and a black political group say they will not hold a Sept. 23 Democratic presidential debate in Detroit, which the leading candidates already were planning to skip.

Okay, it's admittedly not hard to have fun at Joe Lieberman's expense, but this one's too good to pass up.  —  This morning Lieberman and his chief flack Marshall Wittmann put out a press release containing Lieberman's usual attacks on Democrats over Iraq.  The duo faulted "Congressional critics" …

Bush's Vietnam Blunder  —  Desperate presidents resort to desperate rhetoric — which then calls new attention to their desperation.  President Bush joined the club this week by citing the U.S. failure in Vietnam to justify staying on in Iraq.  —  Bush's comparison of the two conflicts …

More Iraqis Are Said to Flee Since Troop Increase  —  The number of Iraqis fleeing their homes has soared since the American troop increase began in February, according to data from two humanitarian groups, accelerating the partition of the country into sectarian enclaves.

Arizona's Rep. Rick Renzi to Retire  —  WASHINGTON — Three-term Rep. Rick Renzi, an Arizona Republican facing a federal inquiry into his family's insurance business, said Thursday he will not seek re-election next year.  Renzi becomes the fifth GOP House member in recent weeks to announce retirement plans …

Mexican Senate sides with mom deported from USA  —  MEXICO CITY (AP) — A Mexican Senate committee passed a measure Wednesday urging President Felipe Calderon to send a diplomatic note to the United States protesting the deportation of an illegal migrant who took refuge in a Chicago church for a year.

Arizona School Suspends 13-Year-Old Boy for Drawing Gun  —  MESA, Arizona — Officials at an Arizona school suspended a 13-year-old boy for sketching what looked like a gun, saying the action posed a threat to his classmates.  —  The boy's parents said the drawing was a harmless doodle and school officials overreacted.

Why America's Pullout From Vietnam Worked  —  The truth behind Bush's mangling of Cold War history.  —  The Soviet Union was in its final days of existence when I visited Vietnam in late December of 1991.  The cold war was about to end forever with the collapse of one of the two adversaries that had kept it going for 40-odd years.

The BBC has squandered trust.  But we will win it back  —  Only the deluded would deny that public faith has been gravely damaged.  To repair it, we must build on existing values  —  'We have had no end of a lesson; it will do us no end of good.  " That was Kipling's verdict on the British and the Boer war.

FBI's release of ferry passenger photos resented  —  For Arabs and Muslims across the Puget Sound area, a rise in the nation's threat level or a bombing halfway around the world often can mark a period of unease.  —  In the years since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, leaders in that community …

Daily Show: Three Generations of "America to the Rescue"  —  In perhaps the most brilliant segment on "The Daily Show" I've ever seen, last night Jon ran through the last three decades of United States intervention in the Middle East to show how incoherent, ass-backwards and counter-productive it has been.

THE SURGE....Is the surge working?  That is, even if you ignore the lack of political progress, are we even making tactical progress?  Since violence in Iraq tends to be seasonal, the only reasonable comparison is one between summer 2006 and summer 2007, so I went to the latest Brookings Iraq Index to check out the most recent numbers.

Musgrave admits she finds progress in Iraq discouraging  —  Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, a long-time supporter of President George Bush's Iraq war agenda, said Wednesday she believes the war isn't going well and is predicting a troop reduction will be announced next month.

We Have Met the Enemy, Again  —  What the Deutsche Bank building tells us about what's wrong with America.  —  Even in these times, an August dimmed with miners trapped in Utah and China, Mexico's hurricane and the final body pulled from below the Minnesota bridge, the story …