If you managed to pull yourself away, however briefly, from hammering the hogs at AIG last week — if you managed to turn down your emotional boiler to a reading somewhere below seething cauldron of hate — you might have seen a small piece of news that is good news. It’s about being fair and making sense and undoing a hideous wrong.

It has to do with the war in Iraq. The war in Iraq. Come on, of course you remember. It just entered its seventh year. You know, it’s the war that was supposed to last about 90 minutes — just long enough for every man, woman and child in the country to pull flowers from their gardens and shower them on the Americans bringing better living through democracy to their cities and towns.

But it’s gone on a little longer than expected. The planning, it seems, was a little shaky. Apparently, some guys who weren’t personally familiar with war drew up the plans on a cocktail napkin without really checking on supplies and personnel and details like that.

So the lightning-quick war turned into the war that moved at the speed of an oxcart with a busted wheel. And troops were sent to fight with shoddy equipment that was never designed for a roadside bomb.

And there is nothing that more sharply defines the war’s deceptions than the ugly piece of work called stop loss. It is the Army’s way of saying “not so fast” to the troops who thought they had done their time, fulfilled their commitment and were free to become civilians.

Stop loss is all in the fine print. It is the Army’s way of filling its manpower gaps by keeping soldiers on active duty after their enlistments have ended.

Some call it a backdoor draft, which has an appropriately sneaky sound to it.

I’ve talked to soldiers who have been caught in stop loss. They thought they had done their time. They had that date up ahead when they could head for home. Then they were told about that wording in the service contract that nobody reads but that can make for one very big surprise.

I remember Josh Biesiada who I talked to when he was visiting his mother, Theresia Kelly, in Saunderstown in the fall of 2005. He was home on leave during his second tour in Iraq. When he enlisted in the Army, it didn’t look as if he’d have a first tour. His four-year enlistment was up just as the war in Iraq was beginning.

But he was stop-lossed and did those two tours. He told me how good it was to see the rain when he was in Rhode Island.

Now, stop loss is on the way out. Saner, more understanding people have taken over, and a very bad idea that left soldiers unable to plan their futures is being ended.

“I felt, particularly in these numbers, that it was breaking faith,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters last week. “When somebody’s end date of service comes, to hold them against their will is just not the right thing to do.”

Imagine, a high-placed admission that the troops have been badly served by a bad idea. It’s so different.

Gates, the only Cabinet holdover from the previous president, obviously does understand what it’s like to go to war. And he knows when the troops are getting screwed.

Stop loss cannot be ended fast enough. It’s unfair and deceptive and adds to the madness of multiple tours. It adds to the problems of coming home.

It will take a while. It will probably be two years before it can be completely removed from the Army way of doing things.

But it is on its way out, and we can only hope that other bad ideas will follow.

bkerr@projo.com