BS: NPR to discuss Afghanistan & Buddha NOW

Subject: NPR to discuss Afghanistan & Buddha NOW
From: katlaughing
Date: 06 Mar 01 - 02:44 PM

NPR's Talk of the Nation's second hour, today, which starts in about 15 minutes, 3pm Mudcat time, will be discussing the Taliban, Afghnistan, and the destruction of the Buddhist statues, etc.

As this is time sensitive, I didn't want to bury this in the thread I started the other day.

Thanks,

kat

Subject: RE: BS: NPR to discuss Afghanistan & Buddha NOW
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 06 Mar 01 - 02:47 PM

Hah, funny, Kat, I was just over there at the other thread, about to 'bury' the same message, 'til I saw this. :)

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: BS: NPR to discuss Afghanistan & Buddha NOW
From: katlaughing
Date: 06 Mar 01 - 02:52 PM

LOL...great minds, eh? Despite our differences..tks!

Subject: RE: BS: NPR to discuss Afghanistan & Buddha NOW
From: katlaughing
Date: 06 Mar 01 - 03:49 PM

Whaddaya think, LR? Personally, I am sickened that a woman is a consultant to the Taliban and seems to be saying that all media reports are wrong when many of those reports, including my own, are based on eyewitness testimonies, photos, etc. of the Afghan women who founded and run the Revolutionary Association of Women in Afghanistan. She just totally denied them any validity for their experiences. Unbelievable.

Subject: RE: BS: NPR to discuss Afghanistan & Buddha NOW
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Mar 01 - 08:01 PM

That sort of thing happens all the time, though. It doesn't matter what the issue is, it happens. Hitler had a lot of Germans convinced that the Poles started World War II, for example, (by attacking a German border post and radio station...Ha!), plus numerous other highly unlikely notions.

Senator McCarthy had a lot of people convinced the US government was full of communists.

Some people are just competent propagandists who know they are spreading disinformation, while others actually believe the disinformation even as they are saying it...no matter how unlikely or bizarre it is.

I wonder which it was in her case?

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: NPR to discuss Afghanistan & Buddha NOW
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 07 Mar 01 - 06:16 AM

Well, kat, I don't necessarily believe the RAWA any more than I do Ms.Helms and the Taleban. I think both have made some good points, and both have also twisted the facts to further their own agendas. The RAWA site doesn't impress me much at all. It's full of factual errors and misleading information. (And maybe I just don't trust people who mis-spell "Herat" 50% of the time...) And much of their "documentation" is "Oh, this one woman told us this," or "This is a photo of an innocent woman shot by the Taleban." That's not proof. Unfortunately, over the last 30 years it has been pretty damned easy to get a picture of a dead Afghan. Is there any reason to take their word for it?

Also not proof, to me, is the information supplied by the infamously anti-Islamic American/European press. Or by the US government, which is also very pro-Christian, anti-Islamic, and anti-Semitic. (a fact first brought to my attention as a teenager, when my father, on a tour of the White House, was detained for 'looking Arabic.') And this is where most of your Taleban "facts" come from. Could it be that Ms.Helms wasn't ENTIRELY full of shit today?

Look somewhere between the positions of the RAWA and the Taleban for the truth. It's not as good for women (or minorities) as Ms.Helms claims, but it's also not as bad as the RAWA and much of the the Western press claim. And, god-dammit, there's worse things going on there. :)

Ah, and anyone who missed it can click here to hear this episode of TOTN, if they like. :)

And click here for the other Buddha-Taleban thread.

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: BS: NPR to discuss Afghanistan & Buddha NOW
From: guest(intruder-inactive)
Date: 07 Mar 01 - 06:56 AM

i don't mean to be dense
but why are any of you surprised?
the labels get edited but 'tis the same nonsense, including the "editing" of the truth

Subject: RE: BS: NPR to discuss Afghanistan & Buddha NOW
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 07 Mar 01 - 06:59 AM

Well, *I* wasn't surprised. ;)

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: BS: NPR to discuss Afghanistan & Buddha NOW
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 Mar 01 - 07:50 AM

Nor I, just disgusted.

Good points, LR, I suspect you've got it about right as far as looking between the two somewhere. Thanks,

kat

Subject: RE: BS: NPR to discuss Afghanistan & Buddha NOW
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 07 Mar 01 - 11:19 PM

Tonight on Fresh Air (NPR again...), the entire show was devoted to Afghanistan. Click here for the Fresh Air page, where you can listen to today's (and every day's) show. If you want. :)

One of the guests was writer Sebastian Junger, who writes about the Afghan resistance fighter, Ahmad Shah Massoud in National Geographic Adventure magazine this month. And on CNBC, there will be a companion documentary this weekend on National Geographic Explorer. Should be interesting...

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: BS: NPR to discuss Afghanistan & Buddha NOW
From: Matt_R
Date: 07 Mar 01 - 11:27 PM

I saw a picture of these Buddhas in the newspaper today. Damn, I didn't know they were that big! Everyone kept saying "statues". C'mon! These things are monuments! Monoliths! That makes it even WORSE! And I will add this...they are SO huge, I think the rock they are cut from might have something to say about being destroyed!

Subject: RE: BS: NPR to discuss Afghanistan & Buddha NOW
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 Mar 01 - 11:42 PM

Matt, they have the height of them listed at the RAWA site; one, if I remember right, is 164 feet. Interestingly enough, an Afghan site, dated 2000, cites the Bamiyan region as the greatest tourist attraction in Afghanistan.

LR, thanks for the additional info. It will be interesting to say the least.

kat

Subject: RE: BS: NPR to discuss Afghanistan & Buddha NOW
From: blt
Date: 07 Mar 01 - 11:51 PM

There seems to be a fanatical mindset that believes in the destruction of offending images, statues, temples, artifacts, citizens, ecological niches, justifying the destruction by divine decree (handily interpreted by a human being). What is the difference between blowing up an ancient stone Buddha and strip-mining the Big Mountain area of Arizona?

The US government, for the most part, believes in Christianity (preferably Protestant) and Capitalism, not necessarily in that order. The Taliban believes in an interpretation of Islam that seems to mimic some fundamentalist Christian sects--rabid intolerance, the need to be isolated from change and/or the larger world, power based on the use of terror and fear. If, as the NY Times would have us think, the destruction of the ancient Buddhas is a way to push the West's buttons at a time when Afganistan is being ostracized by much of the Islamic world, it's an odd gesture, as if from one bully (small but very pissed off)to another bully (obese and complacent). I don't know what Buddha would do in this case.

blt