The Surge Is Irrelevant

McCain is trying to make the campaign about the surge. And most of the television and radio news I've heard has swallowed that framing of the bigger issue of Iraq.
But there's always print, especially blogs.
Eric Martin at Obsidian Wings cites a year-old Slate article by an Iraq veteran who is also a lawyer.
I liked the story he leads with so much that I'm copying it for you:

In 1975, Army Col. Harry Summers went to Hanoi as chief of the U.S. delegation's negotiation team for the four-party military talks that followed the collapse of the South Vietnamese government. While there, he spent some time chatting with his North Vietnamese counterpart, Col. Tu, an old soldier who had fought against the United States and lived to tell his tale. With a tinge of bitterness about the war's outcome, Summers told Tu, "You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield." Tu replied, in a phrase that perfectly captured the American misunderstanding of the Vietnam War, "That may be so, but it is also irrelevant."

Martin concentrates on what Iraq's former prime minister had to say to Congress last week about the surge. It boils down to one word. Irrelevant.