‘Them and us’ – a fine line is being drawn in the desert right now

IS it naïve to believe that there is a ‘them and us’ in this war, a ‘them’ of barbarous Iraqi leaders and an ‘us’ of liberal democratic society?

No doubt some people regard such distinctions with deep scepticism. But most of us draw a line between the cruelties of the Iraqi regime, which is guilty of conduct unimaginable in civilised countries, and the imperfect democracies trying to bring Saddam down.

Sometimes you wonder, though, if the ‘them-us’ distinction is real or imaginary. On Sunday night one of those televised reports from ‘embedded’ journalists came in from the battleground in Iraq. To a background score of gunfire and explosions, a bomb was launched into a building containing Iraqi combatants. When the building burst into flames, the American soldiers could be heard cheering.