[cynicom]

North Africa was very significant...Rommel was knocking on the door of the Suez Canal. Those that were there in 1943 would not agree with you.

[colorado tanker]

Actually, I disagree. I do not and did not slight the courage and heroism of the troops in North Africa. And I agree the loss of Cairo would have been very bad for the Allies. But North Africa was a sideshow the Germans should never have gotten into because it was irrelevent to their main objectives of defeating the Sov's and Brits before the U.S. could bring major forces to bear.

After North Africa, we still weren't much closer to getting at Germany, which we knew we would have to invade to make our unconditional surrender demand stick. So, if you wanted to be a quagmire type pessimist in 1943 you could make a case that we'd done an awful lot of fighting for not much strategic gain against the Germans and Japanese.

You and I know, however, that the fighting in North Africa and the South Pacific in 1943 set the stage for the big gains made in 1944. So, the lesson for me is the pro-quagmire folks over Iraq may find the fighting to date has set the stage for the apprehension of Saddam and the roll up of the Baathist dead-enders, at least that's my hope. Yesterday's events gave me a lot of encouragement.