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ashes of victims and laid a wreath of yellow and white flowers in the "Hall of Remembrance."
• And then one by one, he kissed the hands of a half-dozen Holocaust survivors in a sign of humility and honor as he heard their stories and of loved ones killed by the Nazis during World War II.
• "Never again, Lord, never again!" Francis said. "Here we are, Lord, shamed by what man -- created in your own image and likeness -- was capable of doing."
• ___

• BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan (AP) -- For much of President Barack Obama's tenure in the White House, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have provided a well-defined framework for his foreign policy philosophy. He ran for the White House pledging to bring the conflicts to a close and promised the American people that he would seek to avoid unnecessary war.
• But as the second of those two wars winds down, Obama finds himself struggling to articulate what role he sees the U.S. playing on the world stage for the remainder of his second term. The ongoing conflict in Syria and Russia's threatening moves have also raised questions about how the U.S. can credibly threaten consequences against international foes when Obama so clearly wants to stay out of another large-scale military endeavor.
• The president's surprise trip to Afghanistan Sunday marked the start of a concerted White House effort that aims to answer some of those questions. Even as Obama heralded a drawdown of U.S. forces that will bring the war to "a responsible end" later this year, he said it was likely that a small contingent of U.S. forces would stay behind for counterterrorism missions, as well as to train Afghan security forces.
• "Because after all the sacrifices we've made, we want to preserve the gains that you have helped to win and we're going to make sure that Afghanistan can never again, ever, be used again to launch an attack against our country," Obama said during remarks to hundreds of U.S. troops at Bagram Air Field, the main American base in Afghanistan.
• The president is expected to fill in details of his post-2014 Afghanistan plan during a commencement address Wednesday at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The Pentagon has been pressing for Obama to keep up to 10,000 troops in Afghanistan, though the White House also has been evaluating options that call for

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