Besides the Armenian holocaust, the 500-year Ottoman legacy is a source of deep seated hatred, intolerance and instability in the Balkans, not to talk of its primitive way of life. Janissaries, Turkish elite troops, were made up of kidnapped Christian boys, ages 7 to 14. The kidnappings, knowin in Serb lands as danak u krvi or tribute in blood, were repeated annually. The boys would be taken to Istanbul, forced to convert to Islam and conscripted into the military for life. Impaling rebellious Serbs and other was a favorite punishment. For those who don't know much about this, a stake is driven through the victim's anus and upper torso; the victim is then lifted like a pig on a spit, vertically and left there to die. Death is slow and agonizing, sometimes lasting several hours.
Just like Osama, the accomplishments of the Ottomans in the history are ecclipesed by the evil they caused. Ottomans left much more destruction, hate and discontent than culture and civlization behind them. Lamenting over this lost "paradise" in the likes of Osama and others is analogous to lamenting over Mussolini's fascit Italy -- by ignoring its wrongdoings in Africa and Europe and concentrating on the fact that (for the first time in history) Italian trains were on time.
"A positive feature in Ottoman administration was the religious toleration generally extended to all non-Muslims. This, however, did not prevent occasional massacres ..."Religious toleration, Ottoman style - What a hoot.