# RT eats crow (re: Afghan war strategy) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 20, 2001, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rt-eats-crow-re-afghan-war-strategy/94388 "2001-11-20T14:19:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2001, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rt-eats-crow-re-afghan-war-strategy/94388/1 "2001-11-20T14:19:33Z")
A couple weeks ago, in [Scylla’s Shrub thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=97747), I made the following comments about the Administration’s conduct of the Afghan war: > [@](#): > > I’m trying to see an overall plan to this war - I think such a plan (not tactical details, mind you), at least to the Afghanistan portion of the conflict, is a reasonable thing for the Administration to share - and I fail to see one. We’ve bombed - to what purpose? It wasn’t preparatory to bringing in the infantry and tanks; mostly, it seems to have been a morale-booster for the Taliban, and helping to unify the Afghan people behind them against an outside enemy - us. Smart move, Shrub, Colin, Condoleeza, Dick. > > Are we going to capture Osama with Special Ops forces alone? I don’t believe it. (If we don’t send in ‘real’ ground troops, and we do kill or capture ObL, remind me later so that I can eat crow.) Are we going to capture ObL by aiding the Northern Alliance in capturing Kabul? That won’t work either: controlling Kabul gives them one corner of the country, at best. Still plenty of room for bin Laden to avoid them/us. Are we going to send in a significant ground force? Good - but by doing an extended bombing campaign first, we’ve made it significantly harder for them to be perceived as rescuers of the people, rather than hostile invaders. Boy howdy, was I ever wrong. We haven’t yet gotten bin Laden, but I was so totally wrong on everything else that I thought I’d go ahead, eat crow now, and avoid the Christmas rush. Seems our Northern Alliance allies now control a good deal more than ‘one corner of the country, at best’, and wherever the Taliban leaves, men are shaving their beards, women are burning their burqas, and there is general celebration in the streets. Can’t ask for a much better outcome than that, at this point. Got to say, I’m very, very glad to be this wrong about the Administration’s war plans. So, could someone please pass the Tabasco? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2001, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rt-eats-crow-re-afghan-war-strategy/94388/2 "2001-11-20T14:24:08Z")
I can’t wait to use this the next time I face you in Great Debates. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2001, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rt-eats-crow-re-afghan-war-strategy/94388/3 "2001-11-20T14:25:04Z")
It’s OK, we still love you. And try the honey mustard, it’s better on city fowl. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2001, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rt-eats-crow-re-afghan-war-strategy/94388/4 "2001-11-20T14:26:48Z")
Be my guest. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2001, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rt-eats-crow-re-afghan-war-strategy/94388/5 "2001-11-20T15:07:41Z")
I could join you, for having started [The war does not seem to be going well - now what?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=95983). OTOH, from what I’ve been reading, the US actually did adjust its strategy, to a closer alliance with the Northern Alliance, due to the fact that not enough progress was being made. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2001, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rt-eats-crow-re-afghan-war-strategy/94388/6 "2001-11-20T17:58:33Z")
Good for you, RT. I sure know how to pick 'em! (favorite posters, that is.) I know for myself, reading about the women throwing off the burqas and going back to living real lives, I feel kinda like I think free blacks must have felt for slaves after the Civil War… Sometimes stuff works out in ways you never expected, and even if nothing else major is accomplished, this is more than enough for me. stoid ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2001, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rt-eats-crow-re-afghan-war-strategy/94388/7 "2001-11-20T18:16:24Z")
Requisition for sackcloth: denied Requisition for ashes, suitable for pouring over head: denied. **You** didn’t know? Hell, **Arty** , _nobody_ knew! Nobody knows **now!** Unintended consequences is war’s middle name. Brilliant strategies fall apart for a whim, suicidal attacks prove the genius of drooling doofuses (doofusi? doofusim? something) And now we will be treated to the spectacle of our noble allies dispensing justice. Afghan style. Getting Old Testament on thier respective asses. Or not. 'Cause you never know. Beside, even I was wrong, back in '68. Thought I made a mistake. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2001, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rt-eats-crow-re-afghan-war-strategy/94388/8 "2001-11-20T18:29:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Stoid \* > \*\*I know for myself, reading about the women throwing off the burqas and going back to living real lives… \*\* I saw a picture yesterday of Kabulites (Kabullians? Kabulsters?) practically knocking each other down to get into a movie theatre. It was opening for the first time in years; films, you see, were banned by the Taliban. They didn’t even say what was showing - folks were just thrilled to get to see a movie. It’s easy to take our liberty for granted, and easy to forget that it’s worth fighting for, until you see what life is like without it. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2001, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rt-eats-crow-re-afghan-war-strategy/94388/9 "2001-11-20T18:40:20Z")
What Elucidator said. I think a lot of folks were looking forward (well, not “looking forward”) to a Vietnam-style “grinding along in low gear for years” fiasco. Who could have expected that the whole thing would be over, not by Christmas, but by Thanksgiving? Send the crow (still frozen, one hopes) over to Cal Thomas’s house, RT. > **[Cal Thomas: Biography and Latest Articles - Cal Thomas](https://townhall.com/columnists/calthomas/)** > > Cal Thomas is one of America's most widely syndicated op-ed columnists, and his column is now syndicated by Tribune Media Services in Chicago. For sixteen years Cal Thomas's column was distributed by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate. > [@](#): > > President should…employ the use of at least tactical nuclear weapons against the Taliban… > > [S]imilarities between…Japan in 1945…and Afghanistan now. Then, Japanese troops frequently hid in caves and pillboxes and fought with a religious fervor inspired by their Emperor in whom they vested divine power. Now, the Taliban use caves as protective cover and are inspired by religious zeal. > > Japan, like the Taliban today, had started the war and would not give up. The Japanese, like the Taliban, promised more American dead… > > The Taliban fight with the weapons of terror, determined to kill every man, woman and child they can. The United States should spare no effort in wiping out the Taliban and all terrorists who would follow in their sandal-steps. > > …Like the fanatical Japanese of Truman’s day, the fanatical Taliban will not be dissuaded from murdering as many Americans as they can…It is a time to wipe them out before they wipe any more of us out. > > That’s the kind of fanaticism the United States faces in Afghanistan… uh huh. But see, they’re just playin’ possum… [sub]snippety snip snip snip[/sub] > **[Cal Thomas: Biography and Latest Articles - Cal Thomas](https://townhall.com/columnists/calthomas/)** > > Cal Thomas is one of America's most widely syndicated op-ed columnists, and his column is now syndicated by Tribune Media Services in Chicago. For sixteen years Cal Thomas's column was distributed by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate. > [@](#): > > The weapon of choice following the hoped for vanquishing of the Taliban appears to be kindness. > > Similar efforts to pacify those who hate us were tried by a group of Christian clergy more than 20 years ago. > > Where have I seen this pacification scenario before? It is in a 1997 novel by Peter De Rosa called “Pope Patrick.” The story takes place in 2009. It is about the first Irish Pope, but there is a subplot that can teach us something about the Islamic mind if we will listen… > > Before we start planning the victory parades for the returning troops, we had better get off the charm offensive and start improving our defenses. As “Pope Patrick” ends, the “FIR (Federation of Islamic Republics) missiles, unleashed from submarines in the Atlantic, from silos in a broad band from Morocco to Pakistan, started annihilating the free world.” > > We may not have much time before this fiction becomes fact. I love the smell of paranoia in the morning… [sub]and yes, cal, i agree with you that the u.s. should make all its foreign policy decisions based on novels–the cuban missile crisis would’ve been over MUCH sooner if the state department had read the old man and the sea–there was a subplot that could have taught us much about the Cuban mind if we would only have listened… not to mention the way they could have wrapped up the whole cold war thing in a couple of weekends if they’d read the hunt for red october sooner as it was, we all had to wait for the movie version to come out, and by then it was all over but the shouting[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2001, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rt-eats-crow-re-afghan-war-strategy/94388/10 "2001-11-20T18:43:21Z")
I know what movie it wasn’t–I think it’s safe to say that the Kabul theater is probably the only theater on the face of the planet that isn’t showing Harry Potter. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2001, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rt-eats-crow-re-afghan-war-strategy/94388/11 "2001-11-20T18:44:50Z")
> [@](#): > > You didn’t know? Hell, Arty, nobody knew! Nobody knows now! Unintended consequences is war’s middle name. Brilliant strategies fall apart for a whim, suicidal attacks prove the genius of drooling doofuses (doofusi? doofusim? something) > > And now we will be treated to the spectacle of our noble allies dispensing justice. Afghan style. Getting Old Testament on thier respective asses C’mon, **Elucidator** , don’t you ever get tired of the same, old, cliched rhetoric? Fact is, the U.S. bombing worked! It demoralized the Taliban and made them scatter and abandon their positions. We were right, you were wrong (no big surprise there). People in Kabul are free to shave their beards, to watch TV, to live their lives unrestricted. You were WRONG! And who said the Northern Alliance were noble? Useful, yes, but not noble. They come from a tradition that doesn’t believe in whipping the enemy in a fair fight and then having a drink in the pub afterwards. They kill their enemies, rob the body, and cut off a souvenir or two. The problems we have now are to 1) prevent the renewal of tribal feuds and warlord squabbles that allowed the Taliban in the first place, and 2) to cobble together a coalition Afghan government that will be acceptable to all ethnic groups. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2001, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rt-eats-crow-re-afghan-war-strategy/94388/12 "2001-11-20T19:00:02Z")
There’s class - and then there’s class. Acknowledging you’re wrong when someone calls you on it it classy - although I’d suggest it’s actually the minimum conduct required for a participant here. But it happens rarely enough that I’m happy to call it “classy” when it does. Starting a thread pointing out your earlier mistakes is, in my view, the epitome of a reasoned debator. Yy got class, RT! - Rick ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2001, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rt-eats-crow-re-afghan-war-strategy/94388/13 "2001-11-20T19:10:20Z")
I should have acknowledged the depth of character exhibited in the OP, **RT** , well done! ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2001, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rt-eats-crow-re-afghan-war-strategy/94388/14 "2001-11-20T20:17:40Z")
Ahhh, the stalwart **goober**. Ever dependable, a light dim but constant. But you bring up an interesting point, albeit inadvertantly. Without tiresome research, did anybody post “The Taliban will crumble _toot sweet_, our allies prove loyal and forbearing, the trajectory of the shit shall not intersect the locus of the fan and, this time, Our Boys **will** be home for Christmas…” In other words, did _anybody_ call this one? ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2001, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rt-eats-crow-re-afghan-war-strategy/94388/15 "2001-11-20T20:20:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elucidator \ ***You** didn’t know? Hell, **Arty** , _nobody_ knew! George W. Bush expected the policy to work. That’s why he selected it. So W is smarter than the SDMB panel! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2001, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rt-eats-crow-re-afghan-war-strategy/94388/16 "2001-11-20T20:35:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by december \* > \*\* > So W is smarter than the SDMB panel! 😃 \*\* Ye Cats and Little Fishes! What if its true! The Yale bumpkin with the Kennebunkport drawl is just an act, we are in the thrall of an evil genius…! Or just an ordinary lab mouse bent on world domination. “are you pondering what I’m pondering, Dicky…” RTFirefly was **right**. History went wrong. Thats my story and I’m sticking to it. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Corrado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a88e4f/32.png) [@John\_Corrado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Corrado)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2001, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rt-eats-crow-re-afghan-war-strategy/94388/17 "2001-11-20T20:55:59Z")
So elucidator’s position is, “Even though RT was wrong, I’m vindicated in my theory that things would be a clusterfuck because other people believed it as well”? I’m confused. And as always, RT is classy as hell. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2001, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rt-eats-crow-re-afghan-war-strategy/94388/18 "2001-11-20T21:13:53Z")
Aside from being petty and immature (Goober? That’s the best you can come up with?), **Elucidator** is dishonest. > [@](#): > > RTFirefly was right. History went wrong. Thats my story and I’m sticking to it No, W and Colin Powell were right, and you and your kind were WRONG! (God, that feels good to write) ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2001, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rt-eats-crow-re-afghan-war-strategy/94388/19 "2001-11-20T21:22:03Z")
RTF, depth of character. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How come it’s never a compliment when people tell me what depths I’ve sunken to? ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2001, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rt-eats-crow-re-afghan-war-strategy/94388/20 "2001-11-20T21:25:24Z")
I mean I’ve sunken far lower than RTF ever has, and you don’t see anybody lauding me over it. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rt-eats-crow-re-afghan-war-strategy/94388.md?page=2)