At the family gathering Sunday an outlaw-twice-removed (husband of sister of my sister-in-law's intended) said a true thing. He said that in the history of warfare there has been no answer to guerrilla war. Guerrilla fighters always have the upper hand. And so says Lowry in today's NR:
This is one of the greatest asymmetries of asymmetric warfare. For a guerrilla force, worse is always better, even though the worse comes at its instigation. It seeks a widening gyre of death and destruction. “Promoting disorder is a legitimate objective for the insurgent,” David Galula writes in his classic study of insurgency warfare. “Moreover, disorder — the normal state of nature — is cheap to create and very costly to prevent.”He goes on to say that "it is easier...to destabilize a weak government than it is to bolster one". Defeat and destruction seems thus part of the human condition since the scales are so uneven. A few suicide bombers killed 3,000 Americans. It seems hopeless. And yet last night I was watching Fr. Benedict Groeschel speak of the sanctity of Fr. Solanus, whose cause for canonization continues. And when you hear of all the miracles he worked during his lifetime (St. Pio as well) they seemed almost routine, almost as if that is the way the world should work. Miracles are not a part of the natural order, but it seems as though if we were all saints miracles would be the natural order.
One saint who toiled much in a cause that seemed hopeless was Blessed Mother Teresa. And now that Lebanon's situation reminds me of her daily prayer: "What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway."
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