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Obliterating Pakistan's Buddhist heritage.
By Joachim Hoelzgen for Spiegel Online, with thanks to Fjordman:
Some 35,000 petroglyphs located in Pakistan's Indus River area will soon be flooded by a giant dam. An archeologist from Heidelberg is trying to save as much as he can before encroaching modernity destroys the remote area's cultural history.At first sight, it's difficult to tell whether the work going on near Nanga Parbat mountain (8,126 meters, 26,660 feet) has more to do with preserving the world or heralding its demise.
Down by the Indus River, near a farmers' settlement called Basha, workers have built landing sites for helicopters. They have set up a cargo cablecar above the stream and technicians on the northern banks are drilling holes into the rock in order to search out hollow spaces in the depths. This being an earthquake zone, seismic analyses are also being conducted.
Here, in an oppressively narrow and steep canyon, construction of a gigantic dam is planned -- as high as a skyscraper and kept in place by its sheer weight. The future power plant's turbines are to yield 4,400 megawatts of electricity -- the capacity of four nuclear power plants. Behind the retaining wall, a reservoir will flood 32 villages and force as many as 40,000 people to undergo evacuation in the name of progress.
But the reservoir will also bury beneath itself the witnesses of entire civilizations and ancient cultures along the Indus -- mainly stony messages and images from Buddhist times, whose loss is fully comparable to that of the famous Buddhas of Bamyan, which were demolished with explosives by the Taliban in March 2001.
Posted by Robert at April 26, 2007 5:08 PM
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The Pakistanis no doubt consider the destruction of Buddist artifacts a fortuitous coincidence.
Posted by: aynrandgirl![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at April 26, 2007 6:10 PM
Even when a decrepit, unused, unworthy few yr old tardy mosque is touched or even mentioned to be demolished, whole crowds riot. But of course what does a piece of Buddhist jahilliya count for.
Posted by: Tushar Saxena at April 26, 2007 6:54 PM
Didn't Dominic do a post about a visit to Pakistan to investigate these inscriptions? I seem to remember that he was horrified and saddened by the way they were being vandalised or destroyed by the local population with no government action to preserve them.
Posted by: wallyUK at April 26, 2007 10:15 PM
If Mohammad didn't write it, destroy it!
Hey, wait, Mohammad was illiterate...
He didn't write anything!
Where did that Koran come from, anyway?
Other men's hands.
Fallible mortal men.
None of whom talked to the angel Gibreel.
I'm beginning to think this whole Koran thing is a scam!
Cooked up by cunning Caliphs, much later, to consolidate their crafty power.
at April 26, 2007 11:07 PM
April 27, 2007
Well the Hollywood and democrats have done such a good job improving relations around the world we can start with Richard geer WOW WHAT HE DID FOR INDIA AND US RELATION??
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,479145,00.html
TURKEY SIDESTEPS SECULARISM DEBATE
04/24/2007
Many in Turkey had opposed an Erdogan presidency due to the prime minister's alleged Islamic leanings. Some 300,000 took to the streets earlier this month to oppose Erdogan, and the Turkish army, which traditionally sees itself as the protector of the secularism introduced by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk soon after the 1923 founding of modern Turkey, even issued a subtle warning against an Erdogan presidency.
YES TO CUT FUNDING FOR THE WAR ON ISLAMIC TERRORIST HAVE AN EFFECT?
But even as the decision shows the AK Party's willingness to avoid a confrontation over an Erdogan candidacy, Gül embodies many of the same doubts. Like Erdogan's wife, Gül's wife Hayrunisa wears a headscarf and secularists are opposed to the idea of Islamic attire in the presidential palace. Head scarves have been banned in public offices and on university campuses since Atatürk's Western-style reforms in the 1930s
YES WHAT HAPPENS WHEN PEOPLE SEE YOU DON’T HAVE THE WILL TO STAND UP?
AND ALL JUST IN 4 MO’S TOO?
BUT
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/27/america/27abe.php
Turning Bush-Abe alliance into friendship
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg
Published: April 26, 2007
WASHINGTON: When they met in Vietnam last November, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan presented President George W. Bush with a little gift: a photograph of their grandfathers, playing golf on a course outside Washington with President Dwight D. Eisenhower. After lunch and a garden stroll, Bush said, "I told the prime minister he needs to get over to the United States quickly."
On Thursday, Abe took the president up on his offer, arriving in Washington with his wife, Akie, for a two-day stay that is as much about fostering personal ties as diplomatic ones
IF YOU CUT OUT THE LIB REMARKS TRYING TO CAUSE TROUBLE YOU SEE THE LIBS ARE THE PROBLEM REMEMBER GEER AND THE RIOTS
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NY_POLICE_SURVEILLANCE_BAOL-?SITE=WABCAM&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
04/27/2007
Judge is asked to lift ban on NYPD taping of political protests
By LARRY NEUMEISTER
Associated Press Writer
And it was unreasonable to ban police from videotaping demonstrations when demonstrators are permitted to tape the proceedings, Donoghue said
Terrorist preparation activity, such as scouting locations, is generally lawful, and the checking of leads in terror cases requires police officers to have the freedom to perform necessary surveillance, she said.
YES LIBS AT THEIR BEST OF COURSE WE MUST FOLLOW THE MONEY AFTER ALL WE SEE AROUND THE WORLD THE ISLAMIC TERRORIST FUNDING LEFTIST CAUSES?
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/4/26/213823.shtml?s=os
Reprinted from NewsMax.com
U.S. Missile Test Intercepts 2 Targets
NewsMax.com Wires
Friday, April 27, 2007
OF COURSE IT WAS THE DEMOCRATS WHO WERE AGAINST THE FUNDING FOR THIS PROGRAM BUT THOSE NASTY REPUBLICANS HAD CONTROL?
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/4/26/161647.shtml
Reprinted from NewsMax.com
The House Sides With the Enemy
Paul Weyrich
Friday, April 27, 2007
Meanwhile, in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry M. Reid, D-Nev., has changed his mind about this issue three times in the last six months.
Campaigning last November, he swore not to allow cutting off funds for the military under any circumstance. Then he decided that it was OK under certain conditions. Now he is threatening to present brand-new legislation which would completely end all funding for the war in Iraq.
GOOD READ
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070426.wputin0426/BNStory/International/
Putin declaration sparks NATO concern
MARK JOHN AND DAVID BRUNNSTROM
Reuters
April 26, 2007 at 12:23 PM EDT
“The key thing is to prevent a spiral of misunderstanding between Russia and the United States,” Mr. Steinmeier, whose German Social Democrats have been vocal critics of the U.S. plan, told reporters.
AREN’T THESES THEY GUS WHO GAVE US KOSOVO??
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070426.wclimate0426/BNStory/Business
Oil sands startups get break under climate plan
SHAWN MCCARTHY
Globe and Mail Update
April 26, 2007 at 4:59 PM EDT
TORONTO — The Conservative government has signalled that it won't let its climate change plan derail aggressive oil sands expansion, exempting new projects from greenhouse gas emission targets until they are up and running.
BETTER READ IT?
OF COURSE WE DO KNOW THE GREENIS GET A LOT OF ARAB MONEY?
JUST LIKE STANFORD WITH THEIR LATEST FINDINGS ABOUT CORN RUNNING YOUR CAR?? [follow the money you will find big arab money]
You see sometimes things look really good on paper but real life has a problem with getting in the way!
Can’t play all day have a party dress to get ready and dancing shoes? And Paint my toes nice and red because it is Spring and they will be exposed!!!
Part of the American Tribe
Squirrel Hunter
Spider Killer
GOD BLESS THE USA AND HER FIGHTING FORCES AND ALL WHO FIGHT WITH HER GIVE THEM STRENGTH, WISDOM, SIGHT, AND COURAGE TO DESTROY ALL ISLAMIC TERRORIST AND ALL WHO SUPPORT THEM AMEN
at April 27, 2007 4:36 AM
The destruction of pre-Islamic and non-Islamic artifacts, which took place everywhere that Islam conquered, continues to this day. The Bamiyan Buddhas were not a unique event, but merely an event that happened to take place in the last decade, rather than a century or two ago, because the explosives, and technical know-how (Pakistani and Saudi "engineers") had become available.
The Nazi soldiers, who left explosives in trees along the streets of Florence as they retreated, and were obviously hoping to blow up a good part of that city, are the only ones comparable to the Muslims in their willingness to destroy art and artifacts.
The entire city of Constantinople might have been destroyed, had the Young Turks had their way.
In Alan Moorehead's "Gallipoli" (the anniversary of that battle just passed) one reads the following:
"...the more ruthless of the Young Turks had already made their own arrangements for destroying the city rather than let the Allies have it. If they themselves had to go then all should go. They cared nothng for the Christian relics of Byzantium, and regarded patriotism as a higher thing than the lives of peole who lived in the tumbledown wooden houses in Galata and Stamboul and along the Golden Horn." (p. 73).
"They cared nothing for the Christian relics of Byzantium..."
Posted by: Hugh at April 27, 2007 11:52 AM
this tells me all I need to know about the 'pre-Islamic periods of ignorance'
Bukhari: Volume 5, Book 58, Number 188:
Narrated 'Amr bin Maimun: “During the pre-lslamic period of ignorance I saw a she-monkey surrounded by a number of monkeys. They were all stoning it, because it had committed illegal sexual intercourse. I too, stoned it along with them.”Posted by: A_Plague_on_Both_Houses
at April 27, 2007 12:57 PM
"...encroaching modernity ..."
??!!
Was this supposed to make me laugh, or is this serious?
Posted by: R_not at April 27, 2007 3:11 PM
wallyUK,
Dominic had written about it in his posting on Feb. 11.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/015213.php#c348055
Posted by: arjun.sevak at April 28, 2007 5:25 AM
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