Was just watching CNN’s surprisingly upbeat coverage of the Iraqi elections, and Christian Amanpour was interviewing an Iraqi policeman who was speaking hopefully about the future . . . I noticed that the first word of his response, before the translator’s voice-over kicked in, was “insh’allah.” Now, if I know five words of Arabic it’s a lot, but even I know that that roughly translates as “God willing,” yet the translator’s rendering left out all references to God.
Still, I guess if oridnary Iraqis have to start worrying about the Western media looking down on their religion, well, that’ll be real progress from the things that have plagued them in the past.