Thursday, October 29, 2009

If Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires, then Kandahar is the undertaker. ( America Next?)

"See You Soon, If We’re Still Alive"

The only two Westerners living on their own in Kandahar have been bombed, ambushed, and nearly sold to kidnappers. Here's what they've learned about the country where war just won't end. 

BY ALEX STRICK VAN LINSCHOTEN, FELIX KUEHN | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009

For a split second the room seems to vibrate under the pressure of the shock wave. Ears ring, heads retract, and muscles contract. Your mind jump-starts: Did the explosion sound big or small? Where did it come from? You hesitate, wait for another sound, but hear nothing. You jump to your feet, grabbing a camera on the way to the terrace.

Barely a half-mile away, the cloud of debris billows into the sky. The air fills with sirens, and people pour into the street, climbing on top of otherwise never-used pedestrian bridges, craning to make out something in the distance. A pickup truck piled with bloody bodies passes by from the site of the explosion as the cloud slowly descends, losing its shape and covering the city with a new layer of dust and sand.

This is Kandahar, and no one is surprised anymore. Seven times during the past year, blast waves from huge car bombs have ripped through town, shattering windows and throwing up similar clouds of debris. A few weeks ago, a bomb targeting a police convoy tore a huge crater into the street just outside our door. Not long after that, a massive car explosion devastated downtown Kandahar, killing more than 40 and wounding dozens. It was 20 minutes after the call to prayer, when everyone in Kandahar was sitting down to break the Ramadan fast. The blast blew out our windows, shaking plaster from the ceiling and sending glass flying through the room in thousands of pieces. Gunfire ensued. Once the dust settled, you could see the bomb site, just three blocks from our house, streaks of flames shooting into the night sky.

This is our life, and as the only two Westerners living permanently in Kandahar without blast walls and intrusive security restrictions to protect us, it has been a mix of isolation, boredom, disarmingly potent realizations, and outright depression in the face of what is happening. In our 18 months here, we have witnessed up close the ruinous consequences of a conflict in which no party has clean hands. We have spent countless hours talking with people of all persuasions in Kandahar, from mujahedeen who fought against the Soviets in the 1980s, to guerrillas who fought alongside the Taliban in the 1990s, to Afghans who fight against the Kabul government and foreign forces today. And we have learned that Kandahar defies simple categorization; far more understanding is necessary before we can appreciate how (and how many) mistakes have been made by the Western countries waging war here, let alone begin crafting a vision for the future.

Our Kandahar has many faces, though, not all branded by conflict. Life here is also about swimming in the nearby Arghandab River, enjoying the cool caramel taste of sheer yakh, and sitting among the branches of a friend's pomegranate orchard. It's listening to tales of the past 30 years told by those who directly influenced the course of history, and it's watching the traditional atan dance at wedding celebrations.

Still, violence affects most aspects of life in Kandahar now, and the city has become used to the bombings. For smaller attacks it takes less than an hour for things to return to normal; the people absorb violence like a sponge. After the recent blast that blew out our windows, one of our Afghan friends turned to us and said, "There are those Afghans who migrated to the West who say they miss Afghanistan." He burst into laughter. "This is what they are missing!"


On our first trip to Kandahar together, back in 2004, a friend took us to meet Akhtar Mohammad. Slightly taller than most, with a scruffy beard, a turban, and dark-rimmed eyes, he was in charge of a small police post in one of the city's dicier districts. Over tea, Mohammad offered $50,000 to our friend for the two of us. This was more than five years ago. Today, he could easily pay four times this amount and still make a more than reasonable return on his investment in ransom money.

Over the following years we made many trips around Afghanistan, but Kandahar had become the place we were most interested in: a seemingly insular and ancient society trying to come to terms with a foreign military presence and the perceived corruptions of a globalized culture.

So in the spring of 2008 we set up residence here full-time. Looking back, moving to Kandahar was actually our real arrival in Afghanistan. Away from the isolation and dislocation of the "Kabul bubble," where expats tend to congregate in heavily secured compounds, we started to live among friends, conducting our own research and editing the memoirs of Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan.

There is a sense of timelessness about Kandahar, not just with its look and feel but its importance. 

The city straddles Afghanistan's southern trade route to Pakistan and Iran and is considered the heartland of Afghanistan's millions of ethnic Pashtuns. The Afghan state was founded here in the mid-18th century, and the country's leaders have invariably been drawn from the tribal stock of the south. By the 1970s, Kandahar was known among foreigners as a peaceful oasis stop on the hippie trail to Kabul, and many residents still remember the music parties hosted in nearby villages, where Afghans, Europeans, and Americans would congregate for days at a time.

During the 1980s war against the Soviets, southern Afghanistan saw some of the worst fighting, and it was among the resistance groups there that the seeds of the Taliban were sown. Although Kandahar had become the de facto capital of the country by the late 1990s, it was still an isolated backwater very much removed from anything going on around it. That changed after America ousted the Taliban eight years ago, and since then, Kandahar has grown into a bustling city of nearly 1 million. Nonetheless, it still has the feel of a big village, where everyone knows everyone else's secrets and rumors spread within hours.

As foreigners, our only option is to live in downtown Kandahar, which is still relatively safe -- that is, if you discount the bomb blasts, assassinations, and occasional rocket attacks. Even so, sharing an apartment with Afghan friends and living among the local community -- we don't know any other foreigners in town -- is what allows us a measure of safety. We spend a lot of our time talking with the Pashtun tribal elders who are still left here, and there's also a certain amount of protection for us in that. We don't pay anyone anything to guard our lives.

When we first came to Kandahar, the city's violent underbelly was mostly out of sight. Now, violence is so common that it's somehow less shocking for its frequency. One day you might sit with the victim of a roadside bombing; another day you'll talk to a construction company owner who muses that he wants to hire a contract killer to eliminate his competition.

The fallout from the war in the south -- and it is very much a war -- is never far away. We rarely venture beyond city limits these days, for a trip to most of Kandahar's surrounding districts holds the real possibility of never coming back. Most people you meet are subject to some tragedy or other: The little girl who used to work as a cleaner in our building lost her father and sister in an IED attack on Canadian forces in the city; our office assistant's brother was kidnapped more than a year ago; the father of another young friend was killed by a bomb attack in a Lashkar Gah mosque last year; the list goes on and on.

The social effects of this constant bombardment -- literal and figurative -- are deeply corrosive. A common saying on parting company these days is, "I'll see you soon, if we're still alive." The assumption that you might be killed at any moment is one of the most pervasive and disruptive of mentalities. It means that you cannot think forward more than a day or two. The biggest gain in the shortest amount of time is the usual attitude to most things. With this mindset, it is almost impossible to work, let alone try to build any sort of political consensus.

The nature of the security threat means it is best to keep most activities unplanned. The same goes for extended trips outside the city. The threat from kidnapping gangs -- many of whom work in cooperation with (or from within) the police -- is very real, and to walk around the city two or three times in a row would almost certainly invite that possibility. For that reason we bought, with much hesitation and regret, a treadmill and a weight bench. For just over $1,000, we chose a middle-of-the-line new Japanese model from the 20-odd machines on display at one sports shop. Occasionally, five days will pass in which neither of us can leave the house. A treadmill is a completely unnatural proposition, but Kandahar has forced us to appreciate the value of a long run leading nowhere.

Security permitting, swimming is also a nice break from it all. Somewhat surprisingly, given that relatively few people in Kandahar know how to swim, there are many opportunities here to do so. Various friends have pools in town, shallow ponds for the most part, or sometimes on a Friday afternoon we travel just outside the city, where thousands congregate to piknik, eating fruit and cooling themselves in the chilly streams and canals of the Arghandab River.

But everything in Kandahar is a trade-off. Whatever you do, wherever you go, there is always something you will have to give up for doing it. You trade your security for a good opportunity for firsthand research, or you trade several days of relatively safe seclusion at home for the restless frustration it breeds. Something of value always has to give. We could not remain living in the city without knowing that lesson. For a while we've been considering traveling to one of Kandahar province's western districts, perhaps the most dangerous place in the country, to find out what exactly is taking place between U.S. troops and Taliban fighters. The downside: We might be captured, beheaded, or worse.



As the west's political and military leaders are only now starting to realize, greater Kandahar is and has always been the key battlefield for Afghanistan's future. The international community paid little attention to the south during the first half-dozen years following the Taliban's fall, and that neglect is now being paid back with a vengeance.

Before moving to Kandahar in early 2008, we used to take the ring road, the main thoroughfare that circles Afghanistan's perimeter, when traveling to Kabul and back. Friends in Kabul, working from behind concrete blast walls, would often show us their security briefings saying that to take the ring road meant almost certain death. Twice, armed fighters stopped one of us on the road south at an improvised checkpoint. Thankfully, the same excuse worked both times as several years of university Arabic proved persuasive enough to convince them that a European researcher was really a Syrian doctor returning from a health program down south.

Another time we drove to the desert south of Kandahar city for a picnic with friends. Word spread that some musicians had come to perform at the shrine of a local saint. We sat next to the head of one of Kandahar's government departments, who received a call from a police checkpoint farther north.

"I have eight Taliban with weapons in a car who say that they want to come to the shrine. What should we do with them?" the policeman asked.

"Let them come!" the government official replied. "They're probably just coming to enjoy the music. Who are we to stop them?" So they came. And nobody sitting there in the desert seemed the least bit worried.

In Kandahar, the Taliban are a fact of life -- not necessarily liked, but present nonetheless. The traditional Pashtun recourse to healthy dollops of pragmatism means that a government official can enjoy live music with a Talib, even while each has full knowledge of who the other is. These lines are blurred and the tectonics shift constantly wherever you go in Kandahar. The government is apparently fighting "the Taliban," this amorphous force that everybody has so much trouble defining, but with whom, at an individual level, there seems to be plenty of room to sit and do business. Indeed, previous governors of Kandahar regularly called and conferred with their ostensible enemy, the Taliban "shadow governor." More than once, we have sat down to dinner with Afghans who had been fighting Canadians or Americans in neighboring districts earlier that afternoon.

The Taliban are a mixed bunch of characters, and most Afghans here have some link to them. 

Everyday fighters are drawn from the huge numbers of unemployed, uneducated young men who dominate the rural population, and commanders often are the same figures who fought against the Soviets in the 1980s. Some join the Taliban because they lack a better occupation or a forward-looking vision in their lives; others, out of revenge, religious nationalism, or the simple wish to be left alone. But whatever the motivation, their reasons should be heard.

And if there's one thing we spend a lot of our time in Kandahar doing, it's sitting in on Pashtun tribal meetings, listening. When we first arrived in town, speaking barely three words of Pashto, it was easy to be awed by the long speeches that elders would frequently make, sometimes lasting almost an hour uninterrupted. These old, white-bearded Pashtuns offer a mix of respect and strong opinions. Everyone is given a chance to speak, even on occasion the two foreigners sitting in the room. Decisions are made on the basis of a complex matrix of overlapping priorities -- survival to the next day being the most important, followed closely by tribal loyalties, professional affiliation, and religion.

These meetings offer an important window into how Pashtuns approach conflict in general, how they resolve it, and how the war affects their daily lives. And though in many ways we still feel we are on a crash course in Pashtun culture, a few important takeaways are starting to emerge. Perhaps most notably, we've seen that the Pashtun tribal system, still damaged from years of war and foreign interference, is again becoming the first point of call to settle disputes between locals and others -- be they the government or the Taliban. Honor is the cornerstone of Pashtunwali, the famed tribal code meant to govern all Pashtun conduct from land disputes to revenge, but so, it seems, is survival.

We've also learned that the Taliban transcend Pashtun culture, though they came from the midst of it; their ideology and goals are not formed by their tribal or ethnic identity.  And we have worked hard to start to understand how the Taliban have shaped Kandahar's recent history, conducting dozens of interviews with Afghans who played key roles in the conflicts of the past 30 years and working with Mullah Zaeef to edit and explain his life story.

Indeed, Mullah Zaeef's life offers many examples of the searing effects of decades of war. At 15, he joined the jihad, leaving his family and the refugee camp back in Pakistan. In reality just a boy, he fought alongside many of those who would later become the founders of the Taliban. His life, since before he was born, has been inscribed with the lines of conflict and loss, betrayal and sacrifice. Today, he is unable to live in Kandahar on accounts of threats from all sides, and he spends much of his time in Kabul explaining and advocating the Taliban position.

When journalist friends come to Kandahar for a few days to report a story, many ask the same question: After all the bombings, in the face of so much personal risk, why on earth do we remain in Kandahar?
This place fascinates and frustrates in equal measure, but it often feels like watching history unfold. This is the fault line, and Pashtun lands have a seemingly disproportionate role to play in the modern world: How will NATO -- or U.S. President Barack Obama, for that matter -- survive its encounter with southern Afghanistan? If the international community fails in Afghanistan, what does that mean for potential future interventions and nation-building?

The way this grand drama plays out in front of us is both captivating and addictive, but it is increasingly difficult to remain here. More than once this year we have had long discussions about how much longer we can stay. Nothing has happened to us so far, but with people being snatched from the roads and assassinated in the light of day, with a growing number of IED attacks and suicide bombings within city limits, and with the Taliban openly fighting on the streets on the outskirts, a steep paranoia occasionally pounces. In those moments everything feels like a threat.



But no matter how bad or good things become in the city, in the end the war is being lost -- and will be lost -- in the villages, especially those of the four overwhelmingly rural provinces that make up Loy, or greater Kandahar. Attempts to "protect the people" along belts of security in the cities are perhaps honorable by intention, but they will not end the conflict. Real security -- whether behind blast walls in Kabul, inside armored vehicles, or beneath Kevlar flak jackets -- remains an illusion. In Kandahar, the simple rule is that everything is ok until it is not.

We each have a European passport, the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card, but the people who live here have no such magic at their disposal. While kidnappings of Western journalists, attacks on military convoys, and threats against aid workers make international headlines, Afghans are trapped in a situation from which they cannot escape, suffering in far greater numbers, only without the limelight.

For those Afghans who are able, Kandahar is a get-rich-and-get-out world. There is little you can't buy or bribe your way into or out of. We are often asked by one or another of our friends to join forces to open a construction company or support some other moneymaking project. "The Americans are coming now," they say. "Now is the time. We need to make the money now and then get out of here." It is as if there is no tomorrow for most people, and with little hope left, this very mindset dooms most initiatives to failure.

Kandahar is a tough school, often unforgiving. It takes a constant effort to navigate the social landscape, like trying to memorize the layout of a minefield. Questions about southern Afghanistan more often than not do not have straight answers, and problems rarely have simple 10-step solutions. Time is the main enemy, for foreigners and for Afghans alike. And on the ground here in Kandahar, it becomes harder with each passing day to imagine that the tide will turn anytime soon.

If Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires, then Kandahar is the undertaker.

More than 95 dead in blast as Hillary Clinton arrives in Pakistan


More than 95 dead in blast as Hillary Clinton arrives in Pakistan

A building burns after a bomb explosion in Peshawar
(Fayaz Aziz/Reuters)
Rescue workers feared that more casualties could be trapped in burning buildings
IMAGE :1 of 5
More than 95 people were killed by a car bomb in Pakistan today as Hillary Clinton arrived to offer US support for the Government’s crackdown on militants.
A series of terrorist attacks have shaken the country since Pakistani troops launched an assault against Islamist extremists in the tribal borderlands near Afghanistan.
Eyewitness and police in the north-western city of Peshawar said the bomb struck the area of the Meena market, which is generally visited by woman shoppers. Witnesses said that many of the victims were women and children.
The blast set many shops on fire and people were trapped inside a multi-storey building, which collapsed after becoming engulfed by flames. As the wounded tried to flee, they were engulfed in flames and buried alive by falling masonry.
“Most of the bodies are charred beyond recognition,” a doctor toldThe Times.
”My entire shop fell on me. Smoke filled my face,” said Raza Ali, 30, a grocery store owner whose face was badly burnt.
Shakil Ahmed, another shopkeeper, said: “There was a huge explosion and black smoke covered the area.”
The explosives-packed car was parked outside a shop and was detonated by remote control, police said.
Relief workers said the number of casualties could rise as most of the 200 wounded were in a critical state. Others may still be trapped inside buildings.
A medical official outside the casualty wing of a local hospital called on passing members of the public to donate blood as the doctors described harrowing scenes on the wards.
“There are body parts. There are people. There are burnt people. There are dead bodies. There are wounded. I’m not in a position to count. But my estimate is that the death toll may rise,” said Dr Muslim Khan.
The attack came a couple of hours after Mrs Clinton, the US Secretary of State, had arrived for talks with Pakistani leaders amid tightened security. Her diplomatic mission was to help shore up support for the attacks on militants, which are increasingly controversial within Pakistan.
Mrs Clinton was three hours’ drive away in the capital, Islamabad, when the blast took place.
More than 300 civilians have been killed in attacks by militants in the past three weeks since 30,000 Pakistani troops moved into the South Waziristan tribal region, the nation’s main stronghold of Taleban and al-Qaeda militants.
Pakistan has been placed on high alert amid fears of retaliatory strikes by extremists. The terrorists have regularly targeted Peshawar, the capital of the troubled North West Frontier Province.
The military claimed today that it had made significant headway in the 12-day operation against the Taleban and that troops were closing in on Sararogha, another stronghold of the Taleban in South Waziristan.
Major General Athar Abbas, the chief military spokesman, said that troops had also surrounded a town that was being held by Uzbek fighters. "The Taleban are now fleeing the area, shaving their beards, “ he told reporters.
No one claimed responsibility for today’s attack but police blamed the Taleban, who have been involved in previous assaults. Taleban leaders warned that they would stage more attacks if the army did not end its offensive against the militants.

Afghanistan: The War We will Not Win. DEA agents among 14 Americans dead

DEA agents among 14 Americans dead in Afghanistan

Four US troops die in Afghan chopper crash: NATOAFP/File – A US Army Chinook helicopter seen in operation in southern Afghanistan. Four US soldiers have been killed …
KABUL – A U.S. military helicopter crashed Monday while returning from the scene of a firefight with suspected Taliban drug traffickers in western Afghanistan, killing 10 Americans including three DEA agents in a not-so-noticed war within a war.
Four more troops were killed when two helicopters collided over southern Afghanistan, making it the deadliest day for U.S. forces in this country in more than four years.
U.S. military officials insisted neither crash was believed a result of hostile fire, although the Taliban claimed they shot down a U.S. helicopter in the western province of Badghis. The U.S. did not say where in western Afghanistan its helicopter went down, and no other aircraft were reported missing.
The second crash took place when two U.S. Marine helicopters — a UH-1 and an AH-1 Cobra — collided in flight before sunrise over thesouthern province of Helmand, killing four American troops and wounding two more, Marine spokesman Maj. Bill Pelletier said.
The casualties marked the Drug Enforcement Administration's first deaths since it began operations here in 2005. Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium — the raw ingredient in heroin — and the illicit drug trade is a major source of funding for insurgent groups.
The U.S. has decided to target production and distribution networks after programs to destroy poppy fields did little except turn farmers against the American-led NATO mission.
NATO said the helicopter containing the DEA agents was returning from a joint operation that targeted a compound used by insurgents involved in "narcotics trafficking in western Afghanistan."
"During the operation, insurgent forces engaged the joint force and more than a dozen enemy fighters were killed in the ensuing firefight," a NATO statement said.
Eleven Americans, including another DEA agent, and 14 Afghan security troops were wounded in the crash, NATO said.
Military spokeswoman Elizabeth Mathias said hostile fire was unlikely because the troops were not receiving fire when the helicopter took off. She said troops had been rushed to the crash site to determine the cause.
The crash came less than a week after a U.N. report found that the drug trade is enabling the Taliban to make more money now than when they ruled Afghanistan before the U.S. invasion in 2001. The DEA sent more agents to Afghanistan this year to take part in military operations against insurgents who use drug smuggling to raise funds for their war against NATO and its Afghan allies.
It was the heaviest single-day loss of life since June 28, 2005, when 19 U.S. troops died, 16 of them aboard aSpecial Forces MH-47 Chinook helicopter that was shot down by insurgents.
U.S. forces also reported the deaths of two other American service members Sunday: one in a bomb attack in the east, and another who died of wounds sustained in an insurgent attack in the same region. The deaths bring to at least 47 the number of U.S. service members who have been killed in October.
This has been the deadliest year for international and U.S. forces since the 2001 invasion to oust the Taliban. Fighting spiked around the presidential vote in August, when 51 U.S. soldiers died that month — the deadliest for American forces in the eight-year war.
President Barack Obama mourned 14 Americans killed Monday and told a military audience he will not be hurried as he evaluates whether to alter U.S. strategy in the war.
"I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm's way. I won't risk your lives unless it is absolutely necessary," Obama said during a visit to Naval Air Station Jacksonville in Florida.
Obama is debating whether to send tens of thousands more troops to the country to curb the burgeoning Taliban-led insurgency. Doubts about bolstering the U.S. force grew after widespread fraud marred the Aug. 20 presidential election, raising doubt whether the U.S. and its NATO allies had a reliable partner in the fight against the militants.
Afghan officials scheduled a runoff election Nov. 7 between President Hamid Karzai and challenger Abdullah Abdullah after U.N.-backed auditors threw out nearly a third of the incumbent's votes, dropping him below the 50 percent threshold required for a first-round win in the 36-candidate field.
Abdullah complained Monday that there were no assurances that the November vote would be fairer than the first balloting. He called for the head of the government's Karzai-appointed election commission chairman, Azizullah Lodin, to be replaced within five days, saying he has "no credibility."
Lodin has denied allegations of bias in favor of Karzai, and the election commission's spokesman has already said Lodin cannot be replaced by either side.
Another flawed election would cast doubt on the wisdom of sending in more U.S. troops.
With less than two weeks to go until the vote, disagreements have emerged between the U.N. and theAfghans on how to conduct the balloting.
Lodin said the commission hopes to open all 23,960 polling stations from the first round. The U.N. wants to open only 16,000 stations to cut down on the number of "ghost polling stations" that never opened but were used to stuff ballot boxes.
Meanwhile, security forces in Kabul fired automatic rifles into the air for a second day Monday to contain hundreds of stone-throwing university students angered over the alleged desecration of Islam's holy book, the Quran, by U.S. troops during an operation two weeks ago in Wardak province. Fire trucks were also brought in to push back protesters with water cannons. Police said several officers were injured in the mayhem.
U.S. and Afghan authorities have denied any such desecration and insist that the Taliban are spreading the rumor to stir up public anger. The rumor has sparked similar protests in Wardak and Khost provinces.

Afghanistan: The War we will Not Win..Militants Attack UN Guest House in Kabul

Militants Attack UN Guest House in Kabul

By RAHIM FAIEZ and AMIR SHAH


KABUL (Oct. 28) - Taliban militants wearing suicide vests and police uniforms stormed a guest house used by U.N. staff in the heart of the Afghan capital early Wednesday, killing 12 people — including six U.N. staff. It was the biggest in a series of attacks intended to undermine next month's presidential runoff election.
A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the early morning assaults, which also included rocket attacks at the presidential palace and the city's main luxury hotel.
Skip over this content
ASSOCIATED PRESS

 
An Afghan police officer carries a wounded German man from a U.N. guest house in Kabul that was attacked by the Taliban on Wednesday. Kai Eide, chief of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, said the brazen assault "will not deter the U.N. from continuing all its work" in the country. 

The two-hour attack on the guest house where some 20 U.N. election workers were staying sent people running and screaming outside, with some jumping out upper-story windows to escape a fire that broke out. One American man said he held off the assailants with a Kalashnikov rifle until guests were able to escape.
One rocket struck the "outer limit" of the presidential palace but caused no casualties, presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada said. Two more rockets slammed into the grounds of the Serena Hotel, which is favored by many foreigners.

One failed to explode but filled the hotel lobby with smoke, forcing guests and employees to flee to the basement, according to an Afghan witness who asked that his name not be used for security reasons.
President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack as "an inhuman act" and called on the army and police to strengthen security around all international institutions
.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attacks in a telephone call to The Associated Press, saying three militants with suicide vests, grenades and machine guns carried out the guest house assault.

He said three days ago that the Taliban issued a statement threatening anyone working on the Nov. 7 runoff election between Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah.

Ever Hear of the Word NO!! What should a pastor think about marrying non-believers?

He also does divorces.......Cheap.

What should a pastor think about marrying non-believers?

By John Piper|Christian Post Guest Columnist


How should a pastor think about doing weddings for unbelievers? Would your advice be different if the two getting married are pretty certainly non-Christians, even though they say they are?


It is right for an unbeliever to marry an unbeliever. God approves of that act. (In his Opinion, not scripture)
It is sin, because all things are sin-"Whatever is not from faith is sin"-but it's a God-ordained pattern of life that he approves of.

Then the question becomes, "Alright, if it's right for marriage to happen among unbelievers, should a pastor be involved in it?" And the answer is, "He certainly may."

In our culture the governments have defined pastors as legally able to sign marriage certificates. I can marry anybody I want. If they have the legal documents, I get to sign them.

So I have a legal right and, I would say, a biblical permission to be involved in that. And many pastors consider this one of their best means of outreach.

An unbelieving couple comes and says, "Why don't you do our wedding?" And he says, "OK, here's the deal. I think you should both be Christians, and that's what I stand for. If you're not, I will do the wedding. But you have to sit and listen to me talk for four hours about the meaning of marriage and the beauty of Jesus Christ."
And if they say yes, gold! So, yes.

But now this part of the question: "Would your advice be different if the two getting married are pretty certainly non-Christians, even though they say they are?"

I doubt that it would be very different, because they would say, "We're believers," and you'd say, "OK, I'm willing to consider doing your wedding. I just need an hour with you and then maybe four hours of premarital counseling. And we're going to talk about spiritual things, and I'm going to say some things that might trouble you about what it means to be a believer. Are you OK with that?"

And if they are, then I think that's fine. And what he would be shooting at is, if he thinks they are hypocrites or that they don't understand the faith, he would try to draw that out with all of his heart.

Afghanistan: The War We will Not Win.: 8 US troops die;

8 US troops die; Oct. Afghan war's deadliest month

Afghan National Army soldiers gather as they prepare to go on patrol in the PechAP – Afghan National Army soldiers gather as they prepare to go on patrol in the Pech Valley of Afghanistan's …
KABUL – Eight American troops were killed in multiple bomb attacks Tuesday in southern Afghanistan, making October the deadliest month of the war for U.S. forces since it began in 2001.
The eight deaths occurred during "multiple, complex" bomb strikes that also killed one Afghan civilian, the U.S. military said in a statement.
Several troops were wounded and evacuated to a nearby medical facility, the military said. No other details were immediately available.
The deaths bring to 55 the total number of American troops killed in October in Afghanistan. The previous high occurred in August, when 51 U.S. soldiers died and the troubled nation held the first round of itspresidential elections amid a wave of Taliban insurgent attacks.
The deadliest month of the Iraq conflict for U.S. forces was November 2004, when 137 Americans were killed during the assault to clear insurgents from the city of Fallujah.
"A loss like this is extremely difficult for the families as well as for those who served alongside these brave service members," said Navy Capt. Jane Campbell, a military spokeswoman. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends who mourn their loss."
The loss of life followed one of the worst days of the war for U.S. forces in Afghanistan since they launched air strikes in 2001 to oust the Taliban from power.
On Monday, a U.S. military helicopter crashed returning from the scene of a firefight with suspected Taliban drug traffickers in western Afghanistan, killing 10 Americans including three DEA agents. In a separate crash the same day, four more U.S. troops were killed when two helicopters collided over southern Afghanistan.
U.S. military officials insisted neither crash was the result of hostile fire, although the Taliban claimed they shot down a U.S. helicopter in the western province of Badghis. The U.S. did not say where in western Afghanistan its helicopter went down, and no other aircraft were reported missing.
Those casualties marked the Drug Enforcement Administration's first deaths since it began operations here in 2005. Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium — the raw ingredient in heroin — and the illicit drug trade is a major source of funding for insurgent groups