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0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Our View: Make code neutral ... Donors sought as field project deadline looms ... Jordan Cove LNG project gets final environmental approval ... Our View: Make code neutral ... Donors sought as field project deadline looms ... Jordan Cove LNG project gets final environmental approval ... RELOCATIONS Relocations: The blood on our hands Comment By Herb Rothschild, Jr. for the Tidings DailyTidings.com By Herb Rothschild, Jr. for the Tidings Posted Feb. 21, 2015 at 12:01 AM By Herb Rothschild, Jr. for the Tidings Posted Feb. 21, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Social News By a startling intervention in his life, Macbeth is persuaded that he will play a big role on the world’s stage. At first he thinks of letting be: “If chance may have me king, why, chance may crown me/Without my stir.” At his wife’s prodding, however, he doesn’t. Instead, he acts to guarantee the outcome of an equivocal prophecy. But as he tries to “trammel up the consequence” of so bloody a deed, he discovers that the unfolding of events is eluding his control. Still, Macbeth believes he cannot relinquish the effort. “I am in blood/ Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,/ To go back were as tedious as go o’er.” So he acts with ever less deliberation and ever greater violence even as he loses hope that any lasting good will result. “From this moment/ The very firstlings of my heart shall be/ The firstlings of my hand.” Yet, all his toil and trouble cannot bend the future to his will. He only succeeds in turning Scotland into a charnel house and his soul into a wasteland. Few of us have seen the charnel houses created by U.S. determination to control the future by violence. Mostly it’s been the young men we’ve sent to create them. When they return, many of them discover, like Lady Macbeth, that the blood they’ve shed has indelibly stained their hands, and so their minds fracture. The drug use and mental illnesses of Vietnam veterans, the PTSD and high suicide rates of Afghanistan and Iraq veterans, are well known. Only now emerging, in part thanks to the work of White City resident Stacy Bannerman (“When the War Comes Home”), is the toll our wars have taken on the families who endured the anguish of their loved ones’ absence and their violence when they returned. The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS, aka ISIL) had its grotesque birth in the charnel house into which our invasion and eight-year occupation transformed Iraq, and in the charnel house into which our determination to overthrow Bashar al-Assad helped transform Syria. And what is Washington’s response to ISIS? More bloodshed. As if his six months of bombing didn’t count, President Obama has asked Congress to grant him authority “to use the Armed Forces of the United States as the President determines to be necessary and appropriate against ISIL or associated persons or forces.” Now Washington is enlightening us with a debate over whether the further violence Obama intends is too much, too little, or just right. Deeply engrained in American myth and our national psyche is the notion that some more-than-natural force has ordained us to play an exceptional role in the world. Before 1941 this notion expressed itself in violence against Native Americans, Mexicans, Filipinos and Cubans as the American empire took shape. Then World War II seemed to confirm that bloodshed not only was a legitimate way to fulfill our destiny, but also our gift to the world. Since then, we have spilled blood ostensibly on behalf of the civilized world. Like Macbeth’s, though, our results seem progressively fruitless. If the consequences of their violence were always uncertain, at least Macbeth and his wife were clear about their motives. It was “to all our nights and days to come/ Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.” We remain confused both about the motives and the outcomes of our actions. And so, rather than let be, the “indispensable nation” steps deeper into blood. Herb Rothschild, Jr. is chairman of the board of Peace House. By Herb Rothschild, Jr. for the Tidings DailyTidings.com By Herb Rothschild, Jr. for the Tidings Posted Feb. 21, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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