Taliban official responsible for destruction of Bamiyan Buddhas elected to Afghan Parliament

Islam is the brain mush machine. Did he campaign on 'I destroyed the pagan's idols. Vote for me!' and they did.

My representation couldn't have been much better - I live in California.

News Flash: Democracy is not the answer.

We (Western infidels) have spent alot of our soldiers' lives to overthrow a brutal theocracy and replace it with freedom and democracy, only to have the grateful citizens vote for re-installing a brutal theocracy. Sharia is the basis for their law, and now even their former leaders are being brought back.

And, just in case the media forgot to mention it, the justification for destroying the 1,500 year old Buddhist statues at Bamiyan came from the Qur'an. It is considered blasphemous to have images of man in any form (photo, painting, statue). Along with any form of music, or decorative clothing, etc.

"Allah is most forgiving and merciful."

My name is not Allah.

How much American taxpayer money went to pay for the election and is there any way of getting a refund?

US_infidel,

That's MISTER Mawlawi Jihad Islam Mohammed Jizya Taqiya Mohammed Islam Jizya Mohammadi, to you,sir..

from seattle times..James Yee is on national book tour promoting his new book, "For God and Country"
..he spoke at public library last night..
about Guantanamo prisoners, he said, "I found it difficult to imagine all 660 prisoners were behind Sept. 11.."
.."Perhaps someone like Steven Spielberg will really be gripped by my story and want to make a movie", he said.

yeh, it could be called , "I Spyed for Al-Qaeda
and the Taliban and All I Got Was this crappy T-shirt"

Slick, oleagineous, but not more than one is used to in such regions (think of Hussein of Jordan, in his role as plucky little king), Hamid Karzai when he first appeared, in that beautifully-colored robe he wears, on the world scene. Brothers and a sister running restaurants in Maryland and Massachusetts, son of the civic-minded Afghan, seemed okay. He seemed to be one of those "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslims, or as close to it as one might hope for, outside of Azar Nafisi and Fouad Ajami. Not able to fess up to himself, but still...or so one thought.

Then came the Speech of Mahathir Mohamed, the sober-toned, yet hysterical and telling speech, at the O.I.C., when he made an appeal for Muslims to work in order to overcome the Jews, and to learn more about science and technology, not out of any desire to explore the nature of life or the physical universe, but purely in terms of weapons of war. Wildly applauded, he was, and asked afterwards, the oleaginous Karzai said he had found the speech wonderful, inspirational, tip-top. Well, that was it as far as Hamid Karzai was concerned.

Never mind that the poppy trade is flourishing and Karzai is weak. Never mind that he is a better than the Taliban. His Muslim solidarity, of the kind he expressed after that speech, leaves a permanent impression -- he is not to be trusted. Oh, he's more to be trusted than any conceivable Arab leader. He's more to be trusted than any conceivable Pakistani leader. but he's not to be trusted. That's it.

"... is there any way of getting a refund?"
-- posted by maryrose

Yeah, we could levy an excise tax on the heroin they're exporting into our country.

Well hasn't it been said repeatedly over time that a citizenry free to elect their government will get the government they deserve.

Since the day I first began to feel a glimmer of recognition regarding the Islamic threat I have had the opportunity to feel all the emotions a human being is capable of feeling. From rage to pride, fear to hope. But there is a special kind of mourning I feel when Bamayan is recalled. I absolutely do not mean that I mourn less for those who have been murdered, or that I hold Bamayan up as equivalent to any death, but there is a profound sorrow that I cannot shake when I think of the destruction of those Buddhas. To think that they existed all those centuries, witness to the parade of humanity and history, only to be destroyed in such a staggering act of brutish, feral ignorance.

Were I to prosecute those responsible, I would make the charge "crimes against humanity". And I would make them pay, Lord how I would make them pay.

The Bamiyan Buddhas were magnificent examples of Greek and Indian architectural synthesis of that period, following Alexander's foray.

And most of those monuments and treasures of the period have been systematically destroyed over the centuries after Islam arrived since they probably remind Afghans of their "jahiliyya" period and religion. And of course, many resemble humans which is anathema to Islam.

Might have also had something to do with sending a signal to that holdout region of Kafiristan (a pejorative meaning land of infidels). It desperately and defiantly hung on to its Indo-Greek Buddhist culture and religion for centuries after Islam arrived. The new Muslims made it their successive generational goal (as they are apt to) to convert the kafirs forcibly, which they finally did, of course, and quite brutally. And then they named the land Nuristan, meaning land of light.

To see the people of Central Asia with such glorious antecedents, reduced to a state of such animalistic existence by Islam, is indeed sad.

Even the name of the mountains (Hindu Kush) in Afghanistan tell a tale of devastation visited upon the original inhabitants there. "Hindu Kush" is the Persian term for "slaughter of Hindus"; something the muslim invaders did with gleeful abandon. For more on the Islamic conquest of the Indian subcontinent have a look at:

http://www.atributetohinduism.com/Islamic_Onslaught.htm