Well I am forgiving and hopefully the OP will learn a bit about some of the countries/regions he mentioned now he's in Switzerland.

And incidentally (to the OP) there is no such place as Yugoslavia since Britain and the USA (under Bill Clinton) finally helped put the nail in the coffin of that murderous Serbo-fueled republic in an attempt to stop the war crimes of Serbia and its friends. The name finally died off in 2003 and the Federation (of only 2 countries) died last year. To mention Bosnia/Croatia/Yugoslavia in the same sentence is like comparing today's Germany with Nazi German. Many of the psychos who flew those planes into the buildings in NYC and the later criminals committing suicide bombings in London (and elsewhere) mentioned the war crimes in (and by) those countries just a few years ago. No excuse for what they did but I'd hope an American who travels would know a bit about this.

I could pick at much more of what you listed but I'm hoping you can go and dig up a bit of history.

I don't like your statements, yes the serbs planned ethnic cleansing and did the most horrific acts but croatians and bosniaks were no angels too.

Your comparison with Germany is totally irrelevant and you forgot Croatia during WWII had a nazi government and concentration camps,
anyway we don't care about political correctness in Europe or let's say not at the point US citizen do.

The relation you make between warcrimes in Balkans and islamic terrorist acts is quite groundless.

I prefer someone who is maybe naive but still open minded and curious than someone who believes in such propaganda.

I make no relation. I said the criminals who attacked the WTC, bombed in London and Madrid spoke of the war crimes in the former Yugoslavia (and how nobody helped (wrong since the USA/UK bombed Serbia)). I've seen their interviews. I also said that was no excuse for their deeds even if there is some truth in it (because Clinton/Blair did finally act on themselves as Tony did again with Bush in Iraq -nasty habit) as nobody tried to do anything to stop the slaughter.

And you should fucking know better than accuse me of propaganda. It was only a few months ago Americans were calling French Fries 'Freedom Fries' because they said the French were supporting terrorists by not backing George W. Bush's and Tony Blair's illegal war. All the time they were (and are) too fucking stupid to know their Statute of Liberty was a gift from the French Republic.

Europeans say Americans are dumb and that first post proves it. Yes, not all Americans but certainly very many. And when I say dumb I mean in the pure sense of ignorant. They just don't know about things. History.

We're totally OT so i will be brief, I agree we cannot excuse terrorism but I don't believe in this big war (crusade?) against terrorism whole around the world, there's nothing common, for example, between the FARC in Colombia and the chechen terrorist and I can't see any global answer to the conflicts.
I didn't accuse you of propaganda, just to believe in it.
Saying americans are ignorant sounds a bit rude to me, like saying people from this country are this, people from this country are that. And I think the OP didn't deserve those answers, a friend always says "There are no bad questions, only bad answers."
It looks like Toddly6666 learn something from Switzerland, the quietness.

I am sorry if Americans are offended by my calling them "ignorant" but it was not meant as an attack on the OP nor the 300+ million Americans. That would be a silly claim.

Every American I know (that's most of my family) admit they are ignorant on the full truth of what's happening in the world because they are never taught it and certainly won't find much information on their nightly news. There are ignorant people all over the world but my point is ignorance is taught in the USA unlike any other country in the West.

If ignorance offends then swap it with unknowing but I don't like that because it implies the people don't want to know. Maybe that's true but if it is unwelcome people will come to tell us about things happening elsewhere and they won't be polite either. They'll have death on the minds.

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Better late than never? I missed this during a prolonged period of restricted access in March and have only now split it form the thread it had taken off topic. If the mood takes you, you remain free to answer a question in here and to include a link to a thread in the politics forum you have started to discuss the OT point simultaneously.[Benedict]