A LETTER TO THE PAPER, JESSICA DIECKMAN

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GAZETTE

To the Editor,

It is amusing to behold the whimsical yet enervated attempts of those who try to ordain how one should discern between fact and falsehood. Such insistence is often a poorly disguised effort to pull attention away from larger ideas of undeniable substance.

For example, when a small but important point from the December 11-17 Gazette letter regarding the November attack on two National Guardsmen is labeled as ‘unbelievable’ (and therefore, one is to suppose, automatically not even worthy of being regarded as plausible) by those too busy to ‘google’ corroborative information, it comes off as an attempt to distract readers from the letter’s essential core-message.

Easily accessible articles like Camilo Montoya-Galvez’s CBS News piece 'What we know about the vetting and immigration process…' from Dec. 2025, and the Sept. 2022 CBS News article 'DHS officials lacked "critical data" when vetting Afghan evacuees,' outline the complexity and deficiency of an insubstantial vetting process based on vague information. Whether the Afghan operatives of ‘Zero Unit’ (the CIA-partnered force that the November terrorist R. Lakanwal is alleged to have been a member of) were assessed in any serious way, and with what referential background information (loose at best, when data for many of the evacuees as fundamental as individuals’ birthdates or birthplaces were not known), is worthy of skepticism and deeper investigation.

The aforementioned belly-button gazing attempt at distraction is a tired and obfuscatory tactic that ironically and inevitably backfires, bringing more attention to the significance of the original letter simply by trying to evade it. However, any free advertising that inspires readers to go back to previous important and noteworthy letters from the Gazette is much appreciated.

Sincerely,
Jessica Dieckman

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