# The Bamiyan precedent > **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou. > > Cite as: "The Bamiyan precedent," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-bamiyan-precedent/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *John Kiriakou's account of how the Taliban destroyed their own diplomatic position by blowing up the Bamiyan Buddhas, at a moment when Washington was paying Taliban salaries, funding opium eradication, flirting with a trans-Afghanistan pipeline and flying Taliban emissaries to Houston to meet the Bush camp.* - **The act:** The Taliban's destruction of the Bamiyan statues, 2001 - **The state of relations before it:** Warming - **American payments:** The Clinton administration was paying Taliban official salaries - **Other engagement:** Funding opium eradication; flirting with a trans-Afghanistan pipeline - **The visit:** Taliban emissaries flown to Houston to meet the Bush camp - **After the statues:** "From that point on they were dead to us" - **Mullah Omar's retort:** That the world cared more about old rocks than about people under sanctions **The Bamiyan precedent** is the historical case [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) uses to argue that destroying a sacred building can annihilate the destroyer's international position overnight. He raises it as the model for what would follow [the demolition of the Dome of the Rock](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/destroying-the-dome-of-the-rock). ## The comparison Having predicted that destroying the Jerusalem site would start a world war and finish the Israeli government, Kiriakou reached for the parallel. *"I think what would happen to them, in a way I hope they do it, because it'll be just like what happened to the [Taliban](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/taliban) after they blew up the Bamiyan statues."*[1][2] ## What people forget The force of the comparison depends on a fact he says has been lost. *"People forget, yeah, they were obviously a very isolated regime. But the world was starting to warm to them."*[2] The evidence he gives for that warming is financial, developmental and diplomatic in turn. *"The Clinton administration was actually paying Taliban official salaries. We were funding opium eradication in Afghanistan. We were flirting with this trans-Afghanistan pipeline project."*[2] And, most concretely: *"we flew Taliban emissaries to Houston to meet with the Bushies. Early on."*[3] ## The break The demolition ended all of it. *"So things were starting to maybe warm up. And then they pulled that, and from that point on, they were dead to us."*[3] What interests Kiriakou is how disproportionate the reaction was to the harm caused. Nobody was killed at Bamiyan. The regime's treatment of its own population had not, on the evidence, cost it the engagement; the statues did. ## Mullah Omar's answer The passage ends with the Taliban leader's retort, which the two men treat as unanswerable even while rejecting the act. Mullah Omar, in the version relayed, said that the world cared more about old rocks than about the people suffering under sanctions.[4] The response given on air concedes the logic and refuses the conclusion: *"point taken. But he's also right. We do care about old rocks a lot"*, and about old religious buildings. *"Sorry if that's offensive, but that's just a fact of life."*[4] That concession is the whole argument. Kiriakou is not claiming that the world's priorities are correct; he is claiming they are predictable, and that anyone contemplating the Jerusalem version should expect the same arithmetic to apply to them. ## See also - [Destroying the Dome of the Rock](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/destroying-the-dome-of-the-rock) - [The Taliban](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/taliban) - [Cleaning up after Tora Bora](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cleaning-up-after-tora-bora) - [Afghan heroin policy](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/afghan-heroin-policy) ## Sources 1. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-10-22), at 50:00. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNhvUJehZGo&t=3000s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-22-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 2. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-10-22), at 50:30. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNhvUJehZGo&t=3030s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-22-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 3. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-10-22), at 51:02. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNhvUJehZGo&t=3062s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-22-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 4. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-10-22), at 51:32. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNhvUJehZGo&t=3092s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-22-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-bamiyan-precedent/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt