While some Western officials talked about the conflict as if it were historically preordained—“they have been killing one another for centuries”—the lives of the young people before the war were not dissimilar from those of the average young American. They would meet up for an espresso or a beer after work, and would dance at raves or to the music of popular bands like U2. The values they learned were the same as those we had been taught. Mosques, Catholic churches, Orthodox churches, and a synagogue dotted the downtown. One in every five marriages in Bosnia (and one in three in Sarajevo) had
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