Finally, the truth has come out. Some our Muslim pals in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia committed an act of religious and cultural genocide by actively assisting the Taliban blowing up the thousands year old statues of Buddha carved into the side of a mountain.

According to an account published here on Saturday, a local Afghan told the makers of a Swiss documentary on the giant statues which had stood there, carved in the side of a mountain for hundreds of years, had been destroyed by engineers from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. 

And why were these statues destroyed?

The Taliban went ahead with the destruction of the giant statues, revered for centuries, because they considered them 'offensive to Islam'. They ignored appeals from around the world, including UNESCO and an appeal from the then Government of Pakistan, made, it would appear now, more 'for the record' than any serious intent to stop the Islamist zealots from destroying what the rest of the world considered mankind's heritage. (parentheses added for emphasis. ECF)

All this and more is captured on a documentary to be shown, according to the article, in Washington DC on March 26 at the National Gallery of Art. Hopefully it will be widely distributed and shown  around the country also.
 
hat tip:  Little Green Footballs

Ethel C. Fenig   3 19 06