Israel and the US are erasing Iran and Lebanon's ancient heritage Submitted by Belen Fernandez on Sun, 06/21/2026 - 09:00 The Taliban's 2001 bombing of the Bamiyan Buddhas was condemned worldwide, but the US and Israel's destruction of Tyre's ruins and other ancient sites barely registers Debris covers ancient stone pillar bases near the archaeological site of the Roman Baths in Tyre, south Lebanon, a day after Israeli air strikes on the city, on 8 June 2026 (AFP/Kawnat Haju) Off In early 2001, the Taliban blew up two giant Buddha statues in the Bamiyan Valley of Afghanistan , which dated from the sixth century . The world erupted in outrage at the destruction of cultural heritage , and western media engaged in handwringing over the loss of statues that most people presumably had not known existed in the first place but were nonetheless symbolic of our "collective humanity". Philip T Reeker, deputy spokesman for the State Department of the United States , issued a press statement declaring the US to be "distressed and baffled" by the Taliban's decision to demolish the Buddhas and other ancient artefacts: "Deliberate destruction of statues and sculpture held as sacred by peoples of different faiths is incomprehensible." Of course, when the US launched the so-called "war on terror" later that same year and undertook to bomb Afghanistan to smithereens, there was no similar distress over the "deliberate destruction" or the mass slaughter of "peoples of different faiths".