First and foremost, I totally agree with you that Islam is the enemy. It is nothing more than a plan for world domination couched in religious terminology. Islam will only be content and satisfied when it is ruling the world.
Let's be straight on the definition of the word: total war. Yes, it comes from the Civil War, but it was also the strategy in World War II as well. That was total war. So, I do not mean it in a prejudicial sense at all. Ronald Reagan described total war when he was asked how he would fight the Vietnam War: "I would go in at breakfast, pave it over at lunch, and be home for dinner." Stonewall Jackson described at "drawing the sword and throwing away the scabbard." So, whereas Sherman did march through Georgia...that is not the sole and lone definition of total war.
Well, then, I guess total war -- with the maximum practical effort to spare non-combatants -- is called for.
Sherman, as you probably know, deliberately targeted non-combatants in the effort to break the spirit of the Southern army. This is similar to our firebombing of Japanese cities in WW II. I would like to know that such tactics would not be employed unless the alternative was defeat.