It's clear to me that the first African-American POTUS is a catalytic president.

[JDPriestly]

101. Much will depend on whether he leads us into another illegal, unfounded and very cruel war.

I am on the fence about going into Syria.

There does not seem to be any clear evidence about who is using the chemical weapons.

Both sides seem to make persuasive points. That suggests to me that we need to find a lot more facts before we take any action that puts us on one side or the other.

In the long run, our national interest is in acting justly and leading the world honestly.

We may have military and political strength now, but we will not have either if we lose the trust of the world.

And after the Snowden leaks which revealed a great deal of spying on innocent people around the world, the Iraq War, the intolerance toward the peaceful demonstrators in Occupy and so much other conduct more typical of a totalitarian dictatorship than of an open democracy (including the focus on the drug wars that imprison so many people of color while the crimes of the bankers remain barely examined), we are losing the respect we once had.

Everybody likes President Obama. That is true around the world. And people are very happy that his election and re-election reflected the embrace of racial equality by a majority of Americans.

But if he gets us involved in an unjust war for strategic reasons, and not to serve justice and free people, he will lose support around the world and especially outside the US. If you think Obama is unfairly criticized now, an unjust war will submit him to far more criticism and it will be fair.

I do not understand the situation in Syria. I have the feeling that the US may know more facts about who is using the chemical weapons than we admit.

I have a theory about it, but it is too lacking in substance to even post on DU. It is just a hunch.

MaDem can persuasively argue that assad used chemical weapons, but then others can persuasively argue that it was Assad. We don't have enough facts. We need to be very careful.

Justice is more important than any one person. And also more important than Obama. We cannot once again use air strikes against a country without good reason for doing it.

And every war hastens the damage to the earth from all the carbon dioxide and poisons we spew into the air. Anyone who cares about the environment has to oppose wars that are not most definitely just.