Afghanistan: Taliban Selling Tickets to Ruins of Bamiyan Buddhas They Destroyed in 2001
Millions of Afghans survive on U.S. and Western aid.
Afghanistan’s Taliban regime sells tickets to the ruins of Bamiyan Buddha statues it destroyed 22 years ago. In March 2001, Taliban fighters blew up the world’s largest standing statues of Buddhas in central Afghanistan.
The destruction of Bamiyan Buddhas was part of the Islamization campaign undertaken by the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate, which ruled the country between 1996 and 2001. Museums were looted, and ten of thousands of pre-Islamic artifacts were destroyed as the Taliban brought Afghanistan under its control for the first time and established the Sharia law.
Besides reviving Islamic rule, the Taliban have failed to feed the country’s 40 million people. Most Afghans survive on foreign aid, largely provided by Western countries regarded by the Taliban as infidel nations fit to be subjugated by a Muslim Khalifate. The Biden administration alone has provided aid worth over $1.1 billion since the Islamic takeover.
The Israeli TV channel i24News reported:
The Taliban administration opened a ticket office at the foot of two giant, centuries-old Buddha statues in the Bamian province in central Afghanistan that had been blown up by the extremist regime two decades ago.
According to the Washington Post, the tickets are being sold for the gaping hole in the 125-foot cliff at the price of 58 cents for Afghans and $3.45 for foreign visitors. The Bamian Buddhas were declared false gods by the Taliban founder Mullah Omar in 2001 and were ordered to be destroyed.
Despite international outcry, the extremist movement detonated explosives and fired at the sixth-century relics with anti aircraft missiles.
“Bamian and the Buddhas in particular are of great importance to our government, just as they are to the world,” Atiqullah Azizi, the Taliban’s deputy culture minister, is now saying.
He added that over 1,000 guards have been assigned to protect cultural heritage across Afghanistan, restricting access and overseeing ticket sales. As the cash-strapped country struggles with a financial crisis, the move is seen as Taliban’s efforts to attract more revenue from international tourism.
With the return of Sharia law, public executions are back in Afghanistan. Women have been banned from institutions of higher learning, and underage girls are forced into marriages in compliance with Islamic law.
Apart from selling tickets to the destroyed Bamiyan Buddhas, the Taliban’s ruling elite has apparently tried to make money by selling military equipment, which fell into its hands after the hasty U.S. withdrawal overseen by the Biden administration. The Taliban is estimated to have taken over U.S. military equipment estimated worth $85 billion, some of which has surfaced in neighboring Iran.
The Taliban regime signed a massive oil exploration deal with China. Under an agreement signed with Beijing earlier this year, a Chinese state oil company “will invest as much as $150 million in the first year and $540 million over the subsequent three years,” media reports say. China is also eying Afghanistan’s huge rare earth mineral reserves.
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Comments
“Selling tickets to see the ruins of Bamiyan Buddha”
That sounds safer than visiting the ruins of the Titanic.
This is not a new idea. For years, Disney has been selling tickets to the ruins of the Star Wars and Marvel universes that they destroyed around the same time.
HA the snark is alive and well in Henry 🙂
Has anyone (like Branco) yet done a cartoon with, say, a giant statue of Han Solo (drawing first) half buried in the sand, and Charlton Heston on their knees, screaming in despair, “You maniacs! You blew it up!”?
Taliban Selling Tickets to Ruins of Bamiyan Buddhas
Pour encourager les autres.
Millions of Afghans survive on U.S. and Western aid
They shouldn’t. Period.
Yeah. Tough for the Afghan people but we should not be providing any aid to anyone where govt isn’t at least neutral to the interests of the US.
“the extremist movement detonated explosives and fired at the sixth-century relics with anti aircraft missiles.”
Taliban are expert at attacking things that can’t fight back.
“the hasty U.S. withdrawal”
Dictionary:
The withdrawal method of the Biden administration (warus interruptus) happens when you take the [army] out of the [country] and [gesticulate] outside the [United Nations] to try to prevent [blowback].
The goal of the withdrawal method — also called “pulling out” — is to keep [Taliban] from entering the [Kabul].
Maybe Antifa and BLM will now sell tickets to the neighborhoods that they burned down and the empty areas where historical statues once resided.
The world huffed and puffed but did nothing the attempt to preserve those statues and other historical sites destroyed by devout Islam. Big mistake. Look at all the was destroyed with the Islamic conquests… since nothing… nothing prior to The Prophet (PBUH..or else).
Let them starve. As money is fungible, anything they don’t spend on feeding people goes to terror operations.
Soon we’ll find out a percentage goes to “Hunter Biden”.
The vile Dumb-o-crats share the same obnoxiously infantile, fascistic and totalitarian mindset as the goose-stepping, Muslim supremacist/terrorist Taliban thugs. Iconography and physical objects representing alternative views, symbolism, beliefs, history, etc. — whether actual or perceived — cannot be countenanced and must be destroyed.
What is the Arabic word for ‘chutzpah’?
Afghans aren’t Arabs.
SInce the Koran was originally written in Arabic…. a fitting question.
I’d be willing to wager the original poster isn’t that sophisticated.
Not surprising. Most people charge for their performance art.