Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit attacks critics of the war on Iraq, saying

I think that this “pressure of public opinion” language is a recognition by Saddam that the “anti-war” movement is objectively on his side, and not neutral.

George Orwell used this rhetorical manoeuvre long before there was an Instapundit, but was self-critical enough to recognise and expose its dishonesty. It’s sad to see it being revived yet again.

As this piece reprinted from the NYT notes

[Orwell] tirelessly exposed the argument that one should refrain from attacking ‘X’ (the goodies) because this ‘objectively’ helps ‘Y’ (the baddies). This common argument—which is in essence what Revel calls devotion—is ‘only a short step to arguing that the suppression and distortion of known facts is the highest duty of a journalist’, Orwell wrote. ‘It is a tempting manoeuvre and I have used it myself more than once*, but it is dishonest’. What’s more, it doesn’t work: ‘if you lie to people, their reaction is all the more violent when the truth leaks out, as it is apt to do in the end’.

* (For example, when he asserted during WWII that pacifists were ‘objectively pro-Fascist’)

Update The BlogGeist strikes again. Jim Henley made the identical point, a bit before me, with more links. So far, the response has been a solid piece of Steynwalling.