Oceania Has Always Been at War with Eastasia!
Why oh why can't we have less Orwellian right-wing webloggers?
Today Glenn Reynolds approvingly quotes Pam Hess on the surge:
Instapundit.com: PAM HESS: I think "it's gotten caught up about it, and the debate about it is actually all wrong. What reporters know and what Martha says is that 20,000 really isn't that big.... What we're not asking is actually the central... national security question, because it seems that if as a reporter you do ask the national security question, all of a sudden you're carrying Bush's water. There are national security questions at stake, and we're ignoring them and the country is getting screwed."
And waves his flag in support of Bush:
Better that the story should be missed, and the country screwed, than that a reporter might look unacceptably friendly to Bush!
But Blue Texan has the videotape, and watches Glenn Reynolds in the past insist and insist that we don't need more troops in Iraq:
Unclaimed Territory. 4/26/03: Could we have beaten the Iraqi military with fewer troops? Yes. Would it have been nice to have more troops for occupation/pacification? Yes. Does that mean our force levels were right?... Who knows? Somebody had to make an informed guess, and so far the results make the guess look pretty good...
9/7/2003: MAX BOOT REPORTS FROM IRAQ: Every U.S. officer I talked to said that the 150,000 soldiers we have in Iraq now are sufficient. What's required is not more troops, they said, but better policing methods.
12/17/2003: MORE TROOPS? Jim Dunnigan says it's an election-year gesture that will probably hurt actual readiness...
12/16/2004: My suggestion to McCain and Hagel: If you think we need more troops, then pass some legislation increasing the size of the Army. That's your job, right?
12/19/2004:I remain unconvinced that we need more troops in Iraq.... Just as one seldom wins a war by slapping armor on everything (and no army in history has armored all its soldiers and transport vehicles), one seldom wins a war by dispersing forces to lots of locations in a "prevent" defense. That seems to be what the "more troops" crowd has in mind, but it strikes me as a poor idea...
1/11/2005: I think that calling for "more troops" is a way to criticize while not sounding weak, and that it thus has an appeal that overcomes its uncertain factual foundation... the real question is whether we have enough troops to do what we're going to do next. I think the answer to that is yes...
1/29/2005: CALLING FOR CONSTRUCTIVE ACTION.... I'm not at all persuaded that we need more troops in Iraq...
Does Glenn expect us to take him seriously?