Counting The Casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan

by Haroon Siddiqui
The Toronto Star

"......That reminded me of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

In October 1964, in the early stages of his anti-Shah agitation, he gave a colourful speech attacking the legal immunity enjoyed by Americans in Iran.

“If an American’s servant or cook assassinates your marja (religious leader), the Iranian police do not have the right to apprehend him.

“But if someone runs over a dog belonging to an American, he’d be prosecuted. Even if the Shah himself were to run over a dog belonging to an American, he’d be prosecuted. But if an American cook runs over the Shah, no one would have the right to interfere with him.”

Khomeini’s words spread like wildfire. Within a month, he was exiled. He returned 15 years later, triumphant, having engineered a revolution that toppled the Shah and ended America’s hold on Iran.

The ayatollah remains a reviled figure in the West. But his point is relevant to Iraq and Afghanistan, where the United States and its allies do not even count the local dead......."