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Recently, The Maui News has been offering commentaries from writers without identifying who the writer is.
Up to now, the paper has identified who its contributors are.
But when it recently ran a piece "Americans differ on Ukraine and Gaza," by Victor Davis Hanson, it did not say who Mr. Hanson is. I was curious because his statement was a well-crafted piece of right-wing propaganda.
According to Wikipedia, Mr. Hanson is actually Dr. Hanson, a renown classicist specializing in ancient Greece. He is also a writer for conservative-libertarian think-tanks and publications, including Hillsdale College, hence the style in The Maui News piece.
Previously, he was among the neo-conservatives who pushed for the American invasion of Iraq and was strong supporter of then-secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, the architect of that self-inflicted misadventure. In 2019, he wrote a defense of the Trump presidency, "The Case for Trump."
The give-away in his piece was his mischaracterization of the Ukrainian position as in a "stalled counter offensive," as opposed to the reality, in which a valiant nation, fighting for its survival, is being cut off at the knees by a Republican House of Representatives and Donald Trump, to the apparent benefit of Vladimir Putin.
For six months, Ukraine has been fighting with diminishing ammunition, while the Republicans stall an American resupply. That's the real, disgusting story.
The Maui News has the right to publish whoever it wants. But it needs to tell the reader who they are.
Dave DeLeon
Haiku