You have to admit Hitchens has been harder on Saudi Arabia and Pakistan than orthodox opinion has, which has been pretty soft on those countries although not as soft as part of the left has been. He freely admits he agrees with the mainstream on the war against fascism with a Islamic face.
Orwell's reach is wide, and I still have the 1984 "Commemorative" edition of 1984 that I read for social studies class. During the midst of Reaganmania, we read 1984 and Animal Farm in class and the teacher did try to ram home the point to 12 and 13 year olds that socialism leads straight to totalitarianism. But I took away leftist lessons like usefullness of neverending war as a means of social control. (nowadays, The War on Drugs or the War on Terrorism) And these book dramatized the insidiousness of governmental doublespeak and euphemism (which if one paid attention, you could see was prevalent in the private sector as well).
"Offically the changes of partners had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible."
This was published in 1949. On the other hand, I remember Chomsky joking that a conspiracy theorist uncle, or someone he knew, believed that WWII was a conspiracy to destroy the growing international working class movement.
Peter