http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/7750005/Dunkirk-the-soldiers-left-behind.html
From the article:
But history has tended to overlook the fate of the British soldiers who never made it back across the Channel: 40,000 of them were marched off by the Nazis to captivity. To boost national morale, the British press wrote about the soldiers who escaped rather than those who were left behind, but the latter suffered a miserable fate.
My point, factual and otherwise, stands. There was a hell of a fight at Dunkirk, and Churchill also said "Wars are not won by evacuations". This war, which is as vital to our national survival in its own way as Dunkirk was in 1940, will not be won by ideological evacuation.
I stand corrected, and ask for your pardon. I always assumed the BEF lost most of it's troops in action prior to entering the Dunkirk camp.
I also agree with your larger point, but add a caveat - sometimes, you need to marshall your forces. Dieppe proved that the Allies weren't ready to invade Fortress Europe in 1942; unrelenting pressure through many smaller engagements while building up forces for the main push led to the success of Operation Overlord. In the same way, pressure on the Lefties that builds to 2012 is the only way we achieve ultimate victory.