I can't believe some idiot said that. Sounds like some multi-cultural professor.
Professor Gruen isn't quite right.
There is still the bombed-out Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtnis-Kirche in the center of Berlin to remind Germans of the terrible consequences of the war that had to be fought against Naziism.
So there is a precedent for this idea. But OTOH, leaving the Buddhas destroyed would probably be the wrong message to send the Taliban.