--- In [email protected], "sparaig" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote: > > > > Interesting piece in the NY Times on proposals to > > reconstruct the giant 1,500-year-old Buddhas in > > Afghanistan destroyed by the Taliban in 2001: > > > > http://tinyurl.com/wqwhd > > Ironically, the Taliban destroyed the statues in protest for > all the money going to protect the statues rather than to feed > the hungry of Afghanistan...
Not sure that's really the case. Everything the Taliban itself said publicly about its decision had to do with wanting to remove all traces of religions other than Islam from Afghanistan, in particular statues, because Islam forbids "graven images" of humans or animals. If the Taliban had wanted to make a protest, you'd think they would have done their best to broadcast it. For that matter, they might well have been able to extort funds from the preservation-minded in return for keeping the statues intact, if money had been the issue. (Not that it wasn't an issue, just not for the Taliban.) Where did you read this?? > The hungry remain, and will remain, but the statues, at least, > will be repaired... If they hadn't destroyed the statues, they wouldn't *need* to be repaired, at least not on the same scale.
