[Bugscratch]

http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/03/02/afghan.statues.02/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/south/03/03/afghan.buddhas.02/index.html

Read the reports. They sicken me. It's the most sickening news I read in the past few years.
How can people become so stupid, so ignorant of what's good and bad, so selfish and narrow-minded ?
How can you destroy such a masterpiece of art and culture ? What harm does it cause leaving it where it is ? How perverted does your mind have to be that you can drill holes into 2000 year-old pieces of art with the intention of blowing them up ? Or read this:
http://www.col.com.pk/~afghan/page11.htm

How can you carve your name into an old wall painting writing "Commander Din Mohammad and Commander Homayun from Jauzjan Province were here, April 20, 1995".

This destruction is the same sort of thing that Hitler did here by burning books or by running exhibitions of "Entartete Kunst". Only that the statues will be gone forever. Not like the books, you can reprint those, but you can't replace those statues.
I feel helpless and desperate and that sickens me. If there were anything I could do to stop them I would do it. But there's nothing. Nothing.
The Taleban even declined an offer from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art to have the statues removed at the museum's cost.

It's a prime example of what religion can lead to. I know it's not an official part of religion to do such things, but religions have been misinterpreted by their followers far too often throughout history.

-bugscratch

[Nex]

yes, I second that. thats pretty sick.

[This message has been edited by Nex (edited March 03, 2001).]

[Krazykate]

You have to wonder what put this bug up their turbans?

Senless distruction? Absolutely...and they are doing it to prove what mighty men they are. I am sorry-but the Islamic Fundamentalists are next to dirt as far as I am concerned. I don't think it has a thing to do with the religion-it is who their leaders are and how much of a frenzy they can aspire these people to. They act a lot like the neo-Nazi groups: take the downtrodden poor and start pointing fingers at other groups saying "Bad...Evil...Go kill them!!"

They are self seeking cowards who like posturing and terror to make themselves feel more important. I certainly don't believe all persons of the Islamic faith are represented by these few fanatics.

[Count Zero]

That's just wrong on so many levels...

[travis travis]

The statue bashing? I don't think there's very many people who didn't immediately feel that this is wrong on a fundamental basis as soon as they heard about it. But the worst thing is that no one is going to stop it. You just don't go around smashing 2,000-year-old great relics of civilization, but apparently when you get an asshole in power, you do.

The people are supposed to be able to stand up for themselves when attrocites occur, but it seems the whole world is now so cowardly and in such a daze of happy self-interest, that we can really be taken advantage of. I guess we won't pay attention until they start killing us instead of timeless cultural artifacts.

[v1510nAry]

I'm 14 I don't fully understand , stroy but from what I know its very dissapointing

I don't know how to articulate my opinan on this, other than I think its very wrong.

There we go again Distroying History.
We have hardly anything for are children to look back to love and Respect and to learn from

Very very Dissapointing

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[Typo Dave]

The Taliban are turning Afghanistan into the North Korea of Central Asia.

What is happening to the statues is nothing compared to what is happening to women there.

Women are not allowed to appear in public showing any part of their bodies. They wear totally black and shapeless clothes with only a small slit for their eyes.

Female doctors, university lecturers and lawyers are not allowed to work nor be unaccompanied (by a man) in public or they get stoned to death, and several hospitals are filled with women in deep depression.

Napoleon's soldiers used the Sphinx's face for target practice, so what is happening here is no big surprise, not is it unique to non-Westerners.

[Typo Dave]

PS - In Greece, the Greeks are trying rapidly to build the stadiums etc in Athens necessary to host the 2004 Olympic Games. There is a Greek law which says that if excavators find any heritage objects or sites, then the excavators must immediately cease working and the site must be checked out for historical value. Although construction companies are paid a pittance by way of compensation for this stop-work order, in practice most construction companies ignore it because they lose too much money.

The Taliban destroy antiquities because it pleases God. The Greek construction companies destroy antiquities to meet their budgets and deadlines.

Who do you admire more?

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[edible snowman]

visionary, you're really making younger people look stupid; unless you have some kind of typing disability. typo dave, you might want to add that it please "their god" because if the actual God is pleased by this we're in trouble.

[Typo Dave]

"There is only one God and Mohammed is his prophet..."

Doesn't matter which, but their destruction of ancient cultural art with world heritage value is done with the purest of religious motivations.

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[dr . bang]

I was about to post a msg with the same topic after seing this incident on Headline News.

I'm a kind, friendly and non violence person but here's what i have to think about this:

WHY THE FUCK ARE THESE AFGHANISTANIAN SO FUCKING STUPID, THIS IS THE FUCKING YEAR 2001 AND THEY'RE SEEM TO LIVE IN THE YEAR 1001. LOOK AT THEIR PEOPLE, ALL DRESS THE SAME, ALL MISERABLE. THEIR ECONOMIES WOULD GO UP MUCH HIGHER IF THEY WOULD STOP SPENDING 12 HOURS PER DAY PRAYING TO GOD (is it Mohamed? or Ali? )

I think religion is great but to a certain point. THIS IS OUT OF LINE!!!!!!!!

IF I HAVE TO DROP A PIECE OF SHIT 6000X6000KM IN DIMENSION, I WOULD HAVE TO DROP IT ON COUNTRY LIKE THIS, OR THE PALESTINIAN BECAUSE I FUCKING SICK AND TIRED OF HEARING THEM FIGHTING ALL DAY.

I WAS WONDERING DO THEY HAVE TO RUN AROUND THEIR DINNER TABLE 6 TIMES BEFORE THEY PUT ANY FOOD IN THEIR MOUTH. ALL OF THEIR PEOPLE ARE BEING BRAIN WASHED BY STUPID BELIEF CREATED BY AN OLD DEAD MAN FROM THE LAST FEW HUNDRED CENTURIES

IF THERE'S A GOD IN THEIR WORLD, WHAT KIND OF GOD WOULD MAKE THEIR PEOPLE SO MISERABLE AND IGNORANT (AND VIOLENCE!!!!!!!!!)

AND FOR GOD SAKE, EVERY TIME I HEAR A TERRORIST BOMBING , IT HAS TO BE EITHER THE PALESTINIAN OR THE PAKISTAN.

Thats all i have to say

[dr . bang]

and by the way, i'm going to get killed by a terrorist bomb after posting this message.

Cya guys in the next life!

[Typo Dave]

You're being very unfair. Look at it this way:

1. You have been brought up to believe and everyone around you believes that if you do these things you'll go to heaven when you die. That's a big scary thing to get your head over.

2. You're a bunch of materially poor guys sitting in the arse end of nowhere going ahead with your religious beliefs. The people who used your country as a toilet or for target practice for most of your people's history are yelling at you to stop destroying a heathen icon. Wouldn't you be tempted to say "Well, screw you, you interfering godhaters, its my land, I'll do what I want"?

I'm not an apologist for the Taliban nor their extremist beliefs. I am an apologist for people who have non-Western attitudes and have been royally screwed over by the West (that's Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand) and their technological superiority for centuries.

Lots of cultures don't believe in Western ideas of freedom of religion, the supremacy of the individual, the rule of law and the virtues of democracy. I am an ardent follower of those principles, but I'm a Westerner. They are self evidentally not universal principles, and the sooner Westerners realise that, the more relaxed non-Westerners will be.

I would love to go in with a column of tanks and tell the Taliban what I think of them, but that's military imperialism. I would love to yell at the UN Ambassador for Afghanistan that his country is being run by a bunch of loonies, but that's cultural imperialism. Well, I guess I'm a cultural imperialist, but at least I know I'm a cultural imperialist.

I know in my heart that what they do is wrong, but my heart is shaped by a set of beliefs that they don't share.

Their hearts are shaped by a set of beliefs that I don't share.

Palestine is the same, and just as sad.

Please don't talk about dropping a rock on people who you don't comprehend, and who don't comprehend you.

[Typo Dave]

PS the last terrorist act I can think of in the Middle East was conducted by Americans against the residents of Baghdad - I approve of that particular terrorist act.

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