The important thing is to win the war, not the battle and then lose the war. Sometimes that takes unsavory strategic decisions.
For example I use the fact that we pulled back troops to "protect Australia". Now I don't know all the behind the scenes facts, but would like to think it was with the knowledge it wouldn't affect the war outcome.
The simple fact is, we could survive being occupied and freed, it wouldn't have gone so well if the Japs and Kruats won because of it.
At the end of the day, everyone has an opinion on "if we did this etc" scenario, the situation was to complex to be able to successfully model other outcomes. We won, basically that means we did more things right than the other side did.