Hello tyke-ga,
This is a difficult question to answer with authority, because many
events could conceivably be described as "The CRK". The other
Researchers may not believe me, but three of the ideas that occurred
to me (as well as to them, as I have subsequently found out), were:
"The coalition retakes Kuwait", "The Communists return Kremlin", and
"The cops rout King". (I also thought -- as did another Researcher --
of "killing" or "killings" as the "K", and that's still a possibility,
if there was a high-profile case from that time which could be called
"The C- R- Killings", or killings by a person named "C.R.".)
The Kremlin phrase doesn't sound right -- the phrase should say
"Communists return the Kremlin", and anyway, it doesn't appear from my
searches that anyone writes about the event using a phrase like
"returned the Kremlin". "The cops rout King", or anything like that,
seems a stretch in many respects, for instance, because the clue is
not "The CRRK".
Especially because "K" should logically relate to Kuwait if it relates
to anything in 1991, I'd have to say that "The coalition retakes
Kuwait" is the answer, or is as valid an answer as any other. (The
person or group that thought of the quiz might have had one idea in
mind, but that doesn't mean there couldn't be another. Again, this
goes to the difficulty of answering the question authoritatively.)
Unlike the other two phrases I mentioned, the description of the end
of the Gulf War as the coalition "retakes" Kuwait, or something
similar, is a common phrasing of the event. See, for example:
"Video Almanac - 1991"
CNN Interactive
http://www.cnn.com/resources/video.almanac/1991/
"Time Magazine Contents Page, Vol. 137, No. 5 February 4, 1991
Time
http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1101910204-156364,00.html
"Encyclopedia — Iraq - History" [third paragraph under "The Ascension
of Saddam Hussein"]
Infoplease
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/world/A0858896.html
If you search for "retake Kuwait" or "retook Kuwait" in Google or
other search engines, you'll find many other references, often in
serious articles.
Another Researcher suggested "returns", "restores", or "raids" as
possible substitutes for "retakes". All of the suggestions are
plausible, but none sound as right as "retakes". The first two seem
to require a longer phrase, so that Kuwait is returned or restored
*to* someone. And in my view, the third suggestion makes it sound
like the coalition did something bad to Kuwait.
Aside from the possibility that there is an alternative answer, I can
anticipate two objections to my answer: 1) that the coalition never
"took" Kuwait before "retaking" it, and 2) that the coalition
"liberated" Kuwait. The first objection is answered largely by the
common use of "retake" in conjunction with this operation. The
meaning is not "took again", but "took away", back out of Iraq's
control. The second objection is more serious, because "liberate" has
often been used in this context. But that doesn't mean that the
puzzle-maker should have thought of "liberate". "Retakes" is by no
means a rare way of phrasing the action, and was certainly available
to the puzzle-maker.
For these reasons, I am confident about the answer. However, once
again, there is inevitably the possibility of another answer. If
someone comes up with an answer that is obviously better, I would be
happy to withdraw my answer and allow the other person to post the
other answer in its place.
- justaskscott-ga |
