No, you don't [understand what "total war" is]. Your first statement directly refutes your idiotic second one, making muddles of both in the logical department.
Cute. This is "total war". So is this. "Fighting to win" isn't total war. I deeply apologize for muddling your logical department. ^__^
Ahhh...the age-old debating tactic of the Straw man is constructed, tweaked, and then demolished. Ever the refuge of the sputtering mentally-dim, that one is.
Are you saying the attack on Dresden wasn't large-scale firebombing? Or are you saying we weren't fighting to win in Iraq? I wasn't mutilating what you'd said, I was making an analogy to today's world. In fact, I'll happily continue, regardless of how it offends you. If, today, we didn't have the technology to precisely attack Baghdad, would you expect us to bomb the city area? I don't understand you.
Don't have the slightest idea of what you're talking about.
And Putin's Russia, which started the war as Hitler's ally, was such a shining exemplar of "special humanity" from 1917 to 1989...
Buh. Anyway, my point is that it wasn't "Putin's Russia". Just like this isn't "A Jovial Cad's America" (admittedly, there are some in this country who may even argue that).
Had the Western Allies reduced every population center in Nazi Germany to cinders in the event that the genocidal leadership controlling that nation at the time had refused/not-been-compelled-to surrender, it would've been completely justified. Period, plain, simple.
What I garnered from this is that you're saying our special humanity was in not destroying every population center in Germany, in the case that they did not surrender. But they did surrender, and so we didn't destroy every one of their population centers. I don't know if we would have if they hadn't surrendered, either. I don't see what it matters whether we'd have been justified in this purely hypothetical situation. I don't know what you're talking about again. I'll be honest, I had to look up the straw man fallacy. I know, I know, I'm pretty ignorant to not have that down pat. Whatever- I see your statement here probably constitutes such a fallacy, if, perhaps, gracelessly.
That statement is as silly as it's(SIC) author. Yes, asgromo, there was a good deal of "special humanity" displayed by the Western Allies in ending a conflict initiated against them by the tyrannical regimes that composed the governments of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan. Pearl Harbor--which left more than 1100 American servicemen dead in a sneak attack--occured on December 7, '41. Hitler declared war on this country on December 11, and his scummy ally Mussolini quickly followed suit. The only "prejudice" involved was the resolute determination of an outraged nation against the smarmy, murderous actions of those filthy regimes who'd attacked them.
Firstly, thanks for the friendly insult. I do indeed think you're silly too, ya' crazy-head. Also, as you can see, I'm just as able as you to correct one's grammar and spelling. Wouldn't want you to read Free Republic without learning something, eh? ^__^
Anywho, my point you just gingerly stepped over probably should've been more carefully written- the fault clearly being mine. I'll take this opportunity to correct myself; there is still no special humanity in liberating half the world, especially when the liberation is (rightfully so) second priority to that of self-defense during wartime. There is never special humanity during war. The two concepts are mutually exclusive. Go read a book or watch a movie or fight a war or something and tell me otherwise- I'm pretty intent on this, regardless that I haven't fought a war.
Note: I get the idea about Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan and Fascist Italy being tyrannical, smarmy, murderous, (in the case of Fascist Italy, scummy), and filthy. And the idea that the U.S. was outraged and resolute in its determination. Your flowerly language captivates and fascinates me. It's almost poetic. You should write a novel. I only wonder if you believe you could ever to be taken seriously or objectively like that.
I'd snicker as well, but I think snickering is moronic.
Buh. Anyway, my point is that it wasn't "Putin's Russia". Just like this isn't "A Jovial Cad's America" (admittedly, there are some in this country who may even argue that).
This is called "Moving the Goalposts," which is part & parcel of another logical fallacy you might Google in your spare time.
The Russia of 2005 is indeed "Putin's Russia"; just as, if A Jovial Cad was president of these United States, today's America would, for better or worse, be referred to as A Jovial Cad's America within the context of executive decisions made by moi (in this theoretical universe gone somewhat mad, mind you) that impacted the world in general and the United States in particular. And if I trotted off to a world conference in this mythical universe and, oh, I don't know, declared that the founding of the United Nations was an excrescence on the old historical blotter, many would be justified in saying "but A Jovial Cad's America enthusiastically endorsed the founding of this body in 1945!..." And they'd be right to do so: A Jovial Cad might not have been around in 1945, but his country, i.e., America, was. See how that works?
When I stated "I don't know what you're talking about" it was in the specific context of refuting the implication you were laboring mightily to make: i.e., that I had somehow implied that Putin was the responsible officer of the Russian government in 1945.
Slick trick, and nice try, but no cigar...
in the case of Fascist Italy, scummy
I called Mussolini "scummy"; and he certainly was. Fascist Italy was simply a second-rate tyranny, in the larger scale of things, and a somewhat clownish sideshow to the much more efficient evil on display up North; but it was il Deuce that I was specifically referring to as "scummy."
But this is all, as they say, academic in any event; verbal pirouette with a cipher. When the renowned curmudgeon H.L. Mencken used to get angry, squealing letters in the mail railing against some column he had written, he nearly always sent back a one-sentence reply: "Dear so-and-so: You're probably right."
It is in that spirit that I say: Dear asgromo: You're probably right.
--AJC
P.S. - Love that tag-line, BTW...*snicker*...