Veterans Day has come around again, as it does every fall, arriving with a new crispness in the air, the woods painted in glorious color and the days of a year that seemed new just yesterday now dwindled to a precious few.

If none of those signs had signaled its arrival, the advertising of big sales at the malls would have reminded those without more personal and less commercial ties to military service.

In this year, the last living British veteran of World War I died. The last American combat veteran of The Great War died in 2007 at age 108. The last of the Greatest Generation veterans of World War II, who once numbered some 15 million and changed the face of this nation, are slipping away fast now. The veterans of Korea, the forgotten war, are fading away, too. The ranks of more than 3 million who served in the Vietnam War are thinning out, as well. » read more

You may remember all those Obama campaign cheerleaders for change chanting, "Yes we can!" during last year's campaign events.

This year, in the 10th month of his presidency, it doesn't really seem that they can, or that he can. Nothing much has changed except the size of the federal budget deficit and the National Debt, both swelling and swollen by the humongous bailout of Wall Street and the big banking corporations.

Any hope that we'd witness and celebrate a return to the rule of law after the departure of George W. Bush and his unindicted co-conspirators has long gone a' glimmering. President Barack Obama would rather face an uncertain future than look back at an ugly past. » read more

There are times when less is more and more is the wrong answer, and right now in Afghanistan would seem to be one of those times.

There are a lot of theories and proposals flying around as President Barack Obama and his national security advisers debate what our military and civilian arms of the government can do with the eight-year old war in Afghanistan.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander on the ground, wants another 40,000 to 45,000 American troops thrown into the fight to reinforce the 68,000 in country by late November. » read more

Suddenly the heat is on President Barack Obama to decide, right now, whether to heed his military commanders' appeal for another big surge of American troops or deal with the possibility of defeat within a year in Afghanistan.

Leakers in Washington and Kabul are maneuvering to influence a critical policy debate within the White House. Politicians to the right of him and politicians to the left of him are doing their best, or worst, to sway a presidential decision that has life-or-death consequences.

They'd appear to have boxed the president into a lose-lose position. Either Obama gives Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal the as many as 40,000 more troops he apparently thinks he must have to stave off defeat — locking us into an open-ended commitment of American lives and scarce American resources to an effort that seems likely to fail — or he turns him down and begins a withdrawal from an eight-year war that Republicans will claim is proof that the Democrats and Obama are cutting and running and weak on defense. » read more

The debate over our creeping military mission in distant Afghanistan grows ever hotter, and before we march even deeper into trouble, perhaps it's time to dig out the old Powell Doctrine and answer the eight questions it poses.

Gen. Colin Powell, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said these questions all must be answered with a loud YES before the United States takes military action. He listed his questions in the 1990 run-up to the Persian Gulf War, drawing heavily on the Weinberger Doctrine that was laid down by former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger during the debate over America's ends and means in Lebanon.

• 1. Is a vital national security interest threatened?
• 2. Do we have a clear, attainable objective?
» read more