I have received the Gen. Cash email several times but snopes has not confirmed the article, I also checked the General listings and cannot find a Jim or James Cash.

Bot,
McNamara was not ALWAYS wrong; just most of the time, politically.
Some of his sucesses--
The Ford Falcon was McNamara's car. Small, efficient, solid, if unimaginative. More importantly, they sold millions of them and made FoMoCo a boatful of money. The Falcon was the most sucessful new car launch since............well guess. In fact, the Falcon's launch has only been bettered by one other car,.....guess again.

McNamara was also behind the decision to make the T-Bird into a 4 passenger car. Now, all you 2 seater purists, don't go crazy here. With the economy in recession (remember the Edsel), and poor sales ( although better than the 'Vette), the choice was not a 4 door or a 2 door T Bird. The choice was a 4 door T Bird, or NO T Bird. MacNamara's decision preserved the T Bird as a car line.

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

Okay, I'll give him the cars. Too bad he didn't stay with them. A man should know his limitations.

No guesses on the other 2 most sucessful new car launches????
They are really quite easy.

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

Mustang (in 1960's)? Mustang? (in 1990's)?

True, we currently have few worthy allies because of Bush's arrogance and go-it-alone mentality. Look how different the first Gulf War was under Bush Sr.'s leadership. He was a much better diplomat than his son.

I don't know what planet you live on but there is no civilization clash on this one, except in Al-Qaeda's, Bush's and a few of his supporters' brains. Fighting terrorism is all about intelligence gathering, especially infiltrating suspect groups. The alternative is to attack random countries, spend trillions in the process and further fuel the hatred toward us. Intelligence could have prevented 9/11 if some people only read their memos. Remember the Bin Laden determined to strike US memo in August of 2001? Or the knowledge we had about suspected terrorists training in flight schools? And what did Bush do? He was chopping down trees and chasing squirrels at his ranch in Texas.

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2004 VW Jetta TDI (manual)

Past MB's: '96 E300D, '83 240D, '82 300D, '87 300D, '87 420SEL

I'll give you that, I liked Bush Sr a lot more, however putting the blame of 9/11 on Bush is pretty short sighted. Clinton, Bush Sr, and Reagon all let the problem fester. Bush was just the unlucky guy to have to boil over on his watch. The outcome on 9/11 would have been the same regardless of who won the election in 2000.


This is but one battle in a much broader clash of civilizations that has been going on since the Arab's took Jerusalem and the Europeans lead the crusades to free it. I'm not an expert on that part of history, but I know the Holy Roman Empire fought the Arabs for a long time, and eventualy lost.

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2016 Corvette Stingray 2LT
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

^^^ Read the 9/11 Commission Report. Your timeline does not conform to theirs.

Me? I should read it. Where am I off?

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2016 Corvette Stingray 2LT
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

My bad, you & I posted to this thread at about the same time and I thought I was referring to the post above yours -- Dieseladdicts. Shouldda quoted him but tried a shortcut.

B

This paragraph completly ignores the history of the Crusades, The Ottoman Empire, the rise of Wahhabiism and the last 50 years of US/Middle East relations. Not to mention ignoring the complete gutting of the Intelligence services throughout the 90's and the complete willful ignorance of the Islamic threat that Western Civilisaton has seemed hell bent on pursuing for at least 30 years. That willful ignorance seems alive and well; partially in this country -as the above paragraph and other posts in this thread illustrate - and definitly in Europe. Perhaps France is starting to notice, that remains to be seen though.

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-livin' in the terminally flippant zone

Are you saying most muslims today are hell bent on taking over the world and turning it into an Islamic empire? I realize there are groups like Al Qaeda whose goal is precisely that, but they don't represent the muslim world. Most muslims are migrating to Europe for economic reasons, just like hispanics are migrating to the US.

I've seen the 9/11 Commision Report DVD documentary, as well as a Frontline episode or two on this topic. I don't remember all the details but I believe what I said is more or less true. Where am I off?

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2004 VW Jetta TDI (manual)

Past MB's: '96 E300D, '83 240D, '82 300D, '87 300D, '87 420SEL

No, I'm saying that what you wrote seems to show a great lack of knowledge regarding the Muslims that are hell bent on taking over the world and destroying Western Civilisation along the way.

Incidentally, you seem to think that a robust Intelligence Program that infiltrates militant Islamic groups can instantaneously be created and that we can do this effectively without the ability to survey their communications or associate with people who do bad things. As Peter pointed out; we decided to not do those things and instead take very nice pictures from orbit. It'll take quite a bit of time to re-invigorate those abilities. More so since every action along those lines appears to require a political fight with the Democrats in Congress as well as a media fight for public opinion. Essentially, about the worst way to conduct meaningful intelligence operations.

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-livin' in the terminally flippant zone

I never said we shouldn't do this or that to infiltrate terrorist groups. I say do whatever it takes. The Europeans are doing it quite effectively and it's usually a much smarter approach than sending a big portion of our military to invade another country based on cherry-picked intelligence.

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2004 VW Jetta TDI (manual)

Past MB's: '96 E300D, '83 240D, '82 300D, '87 300D, '87 420SEL

That European Intelligence that you speak so highly of is the "cherry picked" intelligence that was used. In fact, the British have never rescinded their claim that Hussein was pursuing uranium in Nigeria and other weapons platforms. In addition, that exceptional European Intelligence, German this time, provided us with the "inside man" that made many erroneous claims about Saddams chem/bio capabilities on which we acted.

Unfortunately, hindsight is 20/20 and not foresight. It's easy enough to, after the fact, armchair quarterback decisions made based upon valid intelligence at the time. At least this time things weren't treated as a criminal investigation and then agencies prohibited from sharing data (they do that well enough on their own).

Trying to pin intelligence failure on "one day chopping trees and squirrel hunting" while ignoring the deliberate defunding and hamstringing of Intelligence Agencies in the 90's is ridiculous.

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-livin' in the terminally flippant zone