Learning lesson of Vietnam all over again

By JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - After a rousing July 4th holiday weekend, complete with flag-waving, fireworks, assorted burned meat products and a wealth of patriotic speeches, it is time to come back to the harsh realities of this earth and our role in it in the fifth year of this new century and new millennium.

Anyone who writes critically of the conduct of the war in Iraq is asked, over and over, why we focus on the bad news and never write the good news about that country, its people and our soldiers who are caught in the middle of a very bloody birth of some version of representative government.

That would be because there is a dearth of good news in Iraq. There are indeed occasional bright spots, like the January election, but soon enough they are pushed to the background by the steady tide of bad news.

The truth is that every time we sit down to analyze what is going on in Iraq the results are seriously depressing.