Why we must destroy the Sphinx and Pyramids!

Al Arabiya; I. Rony, Wisdom Quarterly

These objects of awe and wonder need to be returned to dust; it's God's will (whatafy.com)

   

Murgan Salem al-Gohary (DreamTV)

An Egyptian jihad leader, with self-professed links to the [CIA's] Taliban, called for the “destruction of the Sphinx and the Giza Pyramids in Egypt,” drawing ties between the Egyptian relics and Buddha statues [in Bamiyan, Afghanistan], local media reported this week.

Murgan Salem al-Gohary, an Islamist leader twice-sentenced under former President Hosni Mubarak for advocating violence, called on Muslims to remove such “idols.”

Well, after sleeping on it, let's keep them.

“All Muslims are charged with applying the teachings of Islam to remove such idols, as we did in Afghanistan when we destroyed the Buddha statues,” he said on Saturday during a television interview on an Egyptian private channel, widely watched by Egyptian and Arab audiences.

  

“God ordered Prophet Mohammed to destroy idols,” he added. “When I was with the Taliban we destroyed the statue of Buddha, something the government failed to do.”

His comments came a day after thousands of ultraconservative Islamists gathered in Tahrir Square to call for the strict application of Sharia law in the new constitution.

But in retaliation to Gohary’s remarks, the vice president of Tunisia’s Ennahda party, Sheikh Abdel Fattah Moro, called the live program and told Gohary that famous historic military commander Amr ibn al-Aas did not destroy statues when he conquered Egypt.

Giza pyramid and ancient chimera Sphinx with cavern entrance under its paw and watermarks revealing its actual antiquity, Egypt, northern Africa (iamxa/trekearth.com)

  
“So who are you to do it?” he wondered. “The Prophet destroyed the idols because people worshipped them, but the Sphinx and the Pyramids are not worshiped.”

Gohary, 50, is well-known in Egypt for his advocacy of violence, Egypt Independent reported.

“He was sentenced twice, one of the two sentences being life imprisonment. He subsequently fled Egypt to Afghanistan... In 2007, he traveled from Pakistan to Syria, which then handed him over to Egypt. After Mubarak's fall in early 2011, he was released from prison by a judicial ruling,” the newspaper added. More

Two forms of Jesus (Issa), the popular vs. the historical, the make-believe vs.
the unknown. The edited Bible is not the place to look. Read the Apocrypha.

 
Thou Shalt Obey or Else
Pat Macpherson, Seven, Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)

If it's God's will, who are we to argue? As Holy Book-obeying Christians and Muslims, we must follow leaders like Gohary into battle against these graven images and idols.

  

It's not The God's will, it's His command. (Kinda makes one wonder why He doesn't do it Himself, but who are we to question the almighty star-god?)

  

Monotheisms

And it's not just him. The CIA created the "Taliban" from released prisoners in Pakistan and elsewhere, bringing them to a foreign land that did not practice violent jihad or Wahhabi-ism. What happened to the Buddhas of Bamiyan, Afghanistan, some of the largest in the world, and more recently to Buddhist rock art in Pakistan, is not an aberration of erratic Muslims.

These are staged activities -- staged by the CIA and US military PsyOps -- to infuriate otherwise peaceful bystanders. Why, for what? So that we will turn the other way whatever is done to our Muslim brothers and sisters. When we listen to religious edicts, particularly those of the barbaric Near East, we engage in a history of violence, from religious crusades, to imperial raids, to hegemony, and attempts at world domination.

How? Fear. In fear we kill, less often out of greed, and least often out of hate -- but always, always, co-motivated by delusion.

Whether Mr. Gotary really wants to destroy Egyptian heritage, long the pride of mathematically-amazing Muslims, it is no reason to call for or condone wars and attacks.

  

If propaganda says kill, let live. If propaganda says be afraid, live. Live and let live.

Maybe the CIA or extremist Christians and pious Islamists will demolish all art, particularly those gorgeous Greek nudes. So? That's on them. Stopping the destruction of arts and antiquities never needs to come to violence. Protection is defensive not offensive. Religious extremism is all around us.

The Near East has better reason to fear Judeo-Christian attacks than the West need fear the Near or Middle East.

But we would never know that because the mainstream media and the propaganda arm of our military constantly beats the drum of fear and war until we are ready to sign off on any atrocity -- drones, extrajudicial killings, assassinations, invasions, oil theft, rape, pedophilia, slavery, radioactive poisoning (particularly from the use of "depleted" uranium which is anything but depleted), and secret war crimes and unspeakable crimes against humanity we are not generally made aware of such as purposely contaminating water supplies, bombing hospitals, and worse.

• Excavating the Sphinx's paw (thank you, Edgar Cayce)
• VIDEO: Israel's enemy within (paranoia?)

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American war criminal, CIA Chief "fired" today

Pfc. Sandoval, Pat Macpherson, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)

Warlord, cheater, CIA Chief, disgraced 4-star US Army General Petraeus fired or told to "resign" before having to testify under oath about Benghazi response (bigstory.ap.org)

 

Medals for killing off the record (M-S)

Former head of the US War on Afghanistan in charge of surges (just as he had committed similar atrocities in our name in Iraq), Four Star General Petraeus (pronounced: "betray us") got caught up in an FBI investigation that revealed hundreds of inappropriate and improper messages between "Saint Petraeus" -- as he was known by many in the military, The Company (CIA), and West Point (his alma mater) where he was related by marriage to the man in charge there -- and his mistress. Every drone is a war crime. 

  

The Other Woman, Broadwell (Telegraph)

But Gen. Petraeus did more than target "high value assets" for murder (internationally illegal political assassinations) via distant screens, he also saw to it that the military-industrial complex (MIC) got everything it paid and wished for from its preplanned invasion of Afghanistan. Cheating on his wife of 37 years was not enough to cause him to quit, a mere lapse in virtue for a man in the business of killing, invading sovereign territory, and engaging in Psychological Operations (propaganda's new name, known in Newspeak as PsyOps).

  

The CIA helped destroy Bamiyan statues (CNN)

He was given the opportunity to do the honorable thing of resigning under duress since he had compromised American security, a crime Pfc. Bradley Manning is being put through the wringer for doing in the capacity of a legally-protected whistleblower, duty-bound to report the crimes he did. Now the newly re-elected President Obama has the opportunity to thank the MIC that arranged for his second term by letting them decide who will now make a better hawk than the disgraced general. What will happen to him? He is likely to sink into obscurity as the President of Princeton University.

Buddhist connection

Mes Aynak Mine, former Buddhist complex (CNN)

Moreover, what will this mean to the priceless Buddhist treasures in Mes Aynak, Logar Province, Afghanistan? There is hope that a change in plans might allow them to survive. Yet it seems more likely that the replacement will attempt to prove himself valuable to the MIC via more surges. This will impoverish Afghanistan further, making them desperate for income from China, and scare China further, which will make it more determined to extract copper and the much more valuable rare earth minerals used in the production of electronics, like the slave-manufactured iPhones in the enormous Foxconn plantation.

• 7 Navy SEALs disciplined over leaks 
• Give peace a chance because WarIsALie.org
• Mexico charges agents in CIA shooting
• Iran explains after protecting itself against US drone
• New timeline shows military response to Benghazi attack

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Mob in Maldives destroys Buddhist history

Hawwa Lubna (Minivannews.com,  Feb. 9, 2012)

The Maldives is a formerly Buddhist nation of many islands (travel.nationalgeographic.com)

   

Several historical artifacts exhibited at the Maldives National Museum, including Buddhist statues were destroyed in a mob attack on Wednesday morning, an act of vandalism that is said to have caused “unimaginable damage” to the treasured Maldivian heritage.

  

Underwater restaurant (sweetydesign.com)

Speaking to Minivan News, a museum official said that a group of five to six men stormed into the building twice, “deliberately targeted the Buddhist relics and ruins of monasteries exhibited in the pre-Islamic collection, destroying most items “beyond repair.”

   

The official said that the details of the damage cannot be released as the police have asked the museum to withhold the information until the investigation into the attack is pending. “But I can say that attackers have done unimaginable damage,” he added.

  

Museum pieces showing pre-Islamic history

“This is not like a glass we use at home that can be replaced by buying a new one from a shop. These are originals from our ancestors’ time. These cannot be replaced ever again,” the official exclaimed.

   

According to a source, a coral stone head of [the] Buddha, an 11th century piece recovered from Thoddoo in Alifu Atoll, was smashed by the attackers, one of the most significant pieces at the museum inside Sultan’s Park.

   

The museum was built with Chinese government aid and opened on July 26, 2010.

   

Other pieces vandalized include the Bohomala sculptures, monkey statues, and a broken statue piece of the Hindu water god, Makara, while the two five faced statues discovered from [the capital island] Male’ were also damaged -- the only remaining archaeological evidence proving the existence of a Buddhist era in the Maldives.

   

...The attack on the museum coincided with the political unrest that escalated in Male’ during the late hours of Tuesday night, after a group of police and military men allegedly joined the opposition protesters, forcing Former President Mohamed Nasheed to resign the following day.

    

AFP reported Nasheed as saying that the vandals included Islamist hardliners who had attacked the museum because they believed some of the statues inside were “idolatrous.” More
   

Are we being led to hate and war?

Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)

Peace Buddha (BuddhaIsland.net)

Imagine a world that makes dictators acceptable by talking about their advances in sanitation, monetary policy, education, and the treatment of women -- only to turn around when they are no longer useful to the Powers That Be, and have them condemned in the media to foment the urge for war. It happened with Saddam Hussein (Iraq), Moammar Qaddafi (Libya), Hosni Mubarak (Egypt), Bashir al Assad (Syria), Mahmoud Ahmedinejad (Iran)... The military-industrial complex, apparently a multinational group run by various clandestine agencies in the West (primarily in the US and UK), is responsible for a great deal of psychological operations (propaganda) preceding war. We were encouraged to hate the "Taliban" as a rationale to accept the slaughter of hundreds of thousands in Afghanistan. We are still played for fools by being made afraid of another CIA-creation, "Al Qaeda." Is Syria's Assad a monster? No more so than he or any Western-installed, funded, and manipulated dictator ever was. So why is it they are suddenly vilified? Why are we encouraged to root for their assassination, deposition, and replacement (with another equally vile puppet of the Powers that Be)? Now even the minor paradise being inundated by climate chaos is dragged into our strategic global initiative to rule with full spectrum dominance. We say no. Hate only begets hate. Is does not justify war, intervention, or installing dictators anywhere on the planet. The powers will do what they do, but let us be mindful instead of playing into the trap of endless war. Why? There is no sense in saving Buddha statues if we do not save the Buddha's message of peace, clarity, and compassion.

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Ancient Buddhism in Pakistan, China (video)

Siddhartha Chabukswar; updated June 2012, Ashley Wells, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly

The former Buddhist civilization of northwestern India, now Islamic Pakistan

  

SWAT, Pakistan (formerly northwestern India) - Militants are holding sway in restive Swat Valley. They are destroying the remnants and heritage of Gandhara Buddhist civilization there.

In the absence of appropriate security arrangements, a historic rock-carved image of the Buddha (near Jahanabad) has already been partially destroyed. However, restoration ("facelift") is underway.
  

Indo-Ariyan Kalash girl

Situated on the banks of the Swat river, known in ancient times as Svastu, the scenic Swat Valley was the center of Buddhist civilization. Prior to being colonized by England as part of the United Kingdom, what are now called "Pakistan" and "Afghanistan" were simply the northwestern frontier of India -- much as it had been at the time of the Buddha.

• The Buddha's extended family -- the Shakya ("gray land" or Afghanistan) Clan was from this region. Kapilavastu, asserts Dr. Ranajit Pal (a maverick historian), was near modern Bamiyan, Afghanistan.

In ancient scripts Swat is known as Udhyana, meaning garden or park. Historians say the Indian Emperor Asoka re-introduced Buddhism to Swat spreading it to Peshawar, Taxila, and beyond into Afghanistan.
 

Chinese Caves

The remarkable Buddhist cave shrines of far western China

• Of course, it already existed all along the deserts and oases of the Silk Route up through Central Asia from Kapilavastu to Kalmykia (Buddhist Europe). This historical fact -- marked by colossal stone monuments in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and far western China -- could not be obliterated even by Muslim extremists, time, or the desolate desert.

Kalmykia, Europe is far from Central Asia, India

However, by seventh and eighth centuries ACE, Buddhist civilization was giving way to another influence in the area (Asuran, Zoroastrian, and Islamic).
 
Rock carvings and historical sites preserve this part of history in the mountains and plains of Swat. Images and statues of the Buddha carved in different forms are a semi-permanent record of the material remains of humankind.
 
We reconstruct the history of Buddhism with their help. Now these carvings, of which there are hundreds in Swat, says Professor Fidaullah Sehrai, the Director of the Archeology Department, NWFP.
  

(Sid) Extremists attacked Buddha statue in Pakistan in 2009.

  
Growing militancy has emerged as a major threat to these rare sites throughout the restive valley. Some have already been damaged. The Jehanabad Buddha is one such complete and inspiring symbol of Gandharan art.
 
Preserved by nature due to difficult location, this meditating Buddha carved some 20 feet high has survived many attacks since 1994. However, the last one proved destructive to the Buddha's face.
  
The body of the Jehanabad Buddha had holes filled with explosives, which the militants could return for the final round of completely destroying the unique image.
  

 
The Kalash: Indo-Greco Buddhist fusion "Aryans"

Complaints were made to the DOC and the Ministry, and they will take some action, said Nasir Khan, an official from the Swat Museum.
 
Unlike the past, the sites look bleak now: No foreign tourists are visiting the sites for fear of getting caught up in growing militant activity. This has badly damaged the economy of the area which largely depended on tourism.
  
Due to growing insecurity and lack of a well thought out preservation strategy, some of the sites are fast losing their attraction for tourists from around the world otherwise interested in following the Buddhist touris circuit in India and Nepal and other Buddhist lands.
  

Resurrecting ancient Afghanistan's Buddhist legacy

• The Amazing Eurasians (White-Asians) of Central Asia
• PHOTOS: Buddhist monuments in Laos and Bhutan

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Facelift for Pakistan Buddha (Jahanabad)

Dawn.com; Wisdom Quarterly

Sculpture of the Buddha with face destroyed by Taliban, Jahanabad, Swat Valley, Pakistan (AP)

  

JAHANABAD, Pakistan (ancient Gandhara, India) - When the [CIA-created] Taliban blew the face off a towering, 1,500-year-old rock carving of the Buddha in northwest Pakistan almost five years ago, it fell to an intrepid  Italian archaeologist to come to the rescue.

  

Thanks to the efforts of Luca Olivieri and his partners, the 6-meter (nearly 20-foot)-tall image near the town of Jahanabad is getting a facelift. And many other archaeological treasures in the scenic Swat Valley are being excavated and preserved.

  

Extremists have a history of targeting Buddhist, Hindu, and other religious sites they consider heretical to Islam. Six months before the 9-11, 2001 attacks, the [CIA/]Taliban shocked the world by dynamiting a pair of 1,500-year-old Buddhist statues in central Afghanistan. [The plan was to create a pretext to invade, which included saving women from Islamic sexism and, apparently, imposing a Western Judeo-Christian brand.]

  

The Jahanabad Buddha, etched high on a huge rock face in the 6th or 7th century, is one of the largest such carvings in South Asia. It was attacked in the fall of 2007 when the Pakistani Taliban swarmed across the scenic Swat Valley. The army drove most of them out two years later, but foreign tourists who used to visit the region still tend to stay away.

 

Olivieri himself had to leave in 2008 after more than two decades of tending to the riches dating back to Alexander the Great and the Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim invaders who followed. The 49-year-old head of the Italian Archaeological Mission in Pakistan returned in 2010 and is back at work. More (CBS News coverage)

• Attacked Buddha gets facelift in Pakistan (Irrawaddy)
• Buddhist Bhutan prepares for a royal wedding

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Buddhist artifacts in Maldives destroyed

OnIslam.net; Wisdom Quarterly

Few realize that the diving paradise known as the Maldives, most of which is at or close to sea level and doomed to destruction as the planet warms due to manmade and natural causes, used to be Buddhist.

  
Now some entity or agency has brought about a coup and is trying to create international outrage by destroying priceless Buddhist art and history. What kind Company or clandestine service would do such a thing? Surely not the CIA, who created the Taliban to make war for the military-industrial complex possible in Afghanistan. So we do not know who it was, but we do know it was not the CIA.

• VIDEO: Formerly Buddhist Maldives in turmoil
• Buddhism in the Maldives

The Maldives are sinking

MALE, Maldive Islands - The destruction of several historical priceless Buddhist artifacts exhibited at the Maldives National Museum has alarmed Maldivians, provoking warnings of a possible rise of Islamic extremism and Taliban-style intolerance in the holiday paradise.

"They have effectively erased all evidence of our Buddhist past," a senior museum official, who asked for anonymity, told Agence France Presse (AFP) on Sunday, February 12, at the now shuttered building in the capital Male.

 

"We lost all our 12th century statues. They were made of coral stone and limestone. They are very brittle and there is no way we can restore them," he explained.

Last Tuesday, Maldives' first democratically-elected president Mohamed Nasheed resigned following three weeks of protests that were joined by a police mutiny.

During the coup that ousted President Nasheed, scenes of violence resulted in the wanton destruction of historical treasures.

The destruction occurred when a handful of men stormed the Chinese-built museum and destroyed its display of priceless artifacts from the nation's pre-Islamic era.

The incident echoed the 2001 destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan by the Taliban, damaging the nation's image. More 

 

Why is someone destroying Maldivian statues?

The Buddhist Blog

Similar to the [CIA-created] Taliban’s destruction of priceless Buddhist and historic artifacts in 2001, an Islamic extremist group has vandalized and destroyed precious Buddhist and Hindu statues in the Maldives. This kind of destruction is derived from extremist beliefs, which are almost always rooted in fear of anything different. Any extreme (whether liberal or conservative) is dangerous because when we believe that we alone are good, then we're more likely to justify intolerance, destruction, and killing. Destroying an ancient statue is tragic, but statues crumble with time anyway. Intolerance, however, quickly destroys happiness, lives, families, countries, and planets. More

• Muslim Maldives president quits after mutiny
• Maldivians rally for Islamic law
• Maldives slams UN on adultery penalty
• Maldives bows to protests, bans spas
• Afghanistan reclaims history piece by piece

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Practicing Impermance Through the Destruction of Buddhist Heritage.

The Sunday Times, Feb 8, 2009

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The 200-year old Buddhist heritage in South Western city of Pakistan - Swat, is now in danger with local Taliban militants threatening to destroy the regions one of the precious museums, media reports here said. The besieged Swat museum which is now under the threat of Pakistani Taliban. It houses pre-Islamic heritage, mainly Buddhists artifacts and Buddha statue of Gandhara era.

"The museum will be reopened only after peace returns to the valley," says its Curator Aqleem. But it must be protected from Taliban, too, to be reopened. The Taliban has threatened to wipe out the symbols of pre-Islamic cultures in Swat and the museum has become a prime target of the militants - a repository of relics dating as far back as to the 3rd century BC, the Dawn reported this week (Wednesday). Swat museum is rich with many pre-historic artifacts and statues mainly belonging to the Buddhist civilization of the South Asian region. Its Buddhist statues are supposed to be the few remaining representations of the Gandhara art.

In November 2007, the militants blew up a historic Buddha statute in the Jihanabad area of Swat causing irreparable damage to the seven-meter tall historic statue. After the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha statue of Afghanistan in March 2001, the meditating statue in Swat was the most precious one, according to the Curator.

James: As an historian and an art lover I am dismayed by this tragic destruction of these Buddhist relics and the region's ancient heritage. When I first read this story I could feel anger rise inside of my mind as well as frustration wondering why someone would do such a thing? Then I realized that a part of me sees a threat to Buddhism as a threat to myself or more accurately the ego-self.

I think this stems from the part of me who enjoys Buddhism for its "trappings," which means the statues, architecture of temples, the history of Buddhism, incense, the bells, the monk robes and on and on. These things are wonderful to be sure, they have their place and I don't see anything wrong in enjoying them in so far as I realize that they are not permanent nor can they bring me lasting peace, happiness and freedom from afflictive emotions such as desire.

It doesn't do me any good to be attached to a statue of Buddha who was a man who taught against attachment!! How silly of me. If Buddha were around to see my thought process and how attached I was toward a bunch of old, empty statues then he would probably smash them himself!! This fear is for the destruction of Buddhism, which has become a very important part of my life and unfortunately seeped into my self-identity/ego.

So If I dig deep enough I can see that what I'm truly afraid of is losing that "self" even despite all the meditating and working on letting go of the self. It's a bit like a virus that keeps mutating to stay alive looking for nooks and crannies to embed itself into thinking the last place I'll look is in structure of Buddhism itself. In other words, in the relics, traditions and history of the religion.

I shouldn't see this destruction as a loss but a chance to practice one of the most important and liberating teachings within Buddhism-impermanance. Traditions are wonderful, so are statues and architecture but in the end I must remember that they are merely fingers pointing to the moon and not the moon itself. This all said I don't think that we should just let all our museums be destroyed and looted (if we can prevent it) because even though they are just objects they do offer some benefits to society. It's just that I need not become agitated when objects/relics do disappear or are destroyed. Everything must go in the end and no amount of Buddha statues and relics is going to deliver me from samsara.

~Peace to all beings~

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