The following letters to the editor appeared in the March 11, 2026 edition of the Star Valley Independent.

Betrayal

Dear Editor,

For nearly a decade and throughout three different presidential campaigns we heard Donald Trump adamantly state that his was the “no new wars” campaign. He was very persuasive during the 2016 GOP debate, stating “we have been in the Middle East for 15 years and we haven’t won ANYTHING! We spent 5 trillion dollars.” In a 2016 speech, Trump said, “Our current strategy of nation-building and regime change is a proven failure. We have created the vacuums that allow terrorists to grow and thrive.”

Many of us agreed with his statements. We saw that US troops had been caught in brutal wars that killed and maimed thousands of our soldiers and civilians. And for what? These conflicts created power vacuums where new and even worse regimes took over. We never saw any positive changes after years of war. Trump repeated these sentiments many times in 2016, 2020, and 2024. He had us hope for “no more wars”.

But here we are again. The American-Israeli war against Iran is an illegal and unconstitutional war that was decided on by President Trump without congressional authorization or any real discussion.

Within days of this war’s start, we have seen innocent civilians (elementary-aged school girls) and US soldiers killed. My daughter’s past high school boyfriend received the news that his sister, Nicole Amor (a mother of two) was killed in Kuwait when Iran bombed our military base in Kuwait. Her death happened within a day of Trump attacking Iran.

This senseless war feels like the ultimate betrayal and my heart is broken.

C. Nelson

 

The RIGHT way to do Digital ID

Dear Editor,

Utah SB0275 State-Endorsed Digital Identity just passed their legislature. This is the right way to do a  digital ID, and was proposed to Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray last year regarding SOS  responsibilities to implement immutable ledgers for Digital Birth and Residency records. The latter can be used to prevent Title fraud and both enhance Election Integrity.

This is exactly WHY Wyo Senate File 82 (last week’s letter) should be abandoned.

Co-sponsored by Senators Crago, Nethercott, Olsen, and Representatives Clouston, Connolly, and  Filer, SF-82 was a well intentioned haphazard effort to reduce LLC fraud, but could expose legitimate  entities and Wyoming citizens to lawfare in the event of a breach.

Wyoming’s legislature approach to SB0275 should have similar structures to Utah’s, where the state  verifies and endorses a limited set of core identity attributes only during issuance: name, birth date,  image, and residence address.

This would happen through a one-time identity proofing process (using  authorized entities and risk-based standards) to confirm the applicant’s identity, and implemented as  simply as the Wyo SOS digitally signing user’s credentials.

For example, the Holder shares proof (“over 21”) via a wallet app by the holder initiating the credential from the wallet. The relying party (business/agency) verifies it instantly on the spot with math — using  the state’s public key – No state server query, no central database ping. Just direct, private, offline capable check and no surveillance.

In process, the State explicitly cannot monitor, surveil, track, or log presentations/use of the digital  identity after issuance and prevents developing social scoring for “cancellations”.

I am currently preparing a white paper proposal that focuses on leveraging state-endorsed self sovereign identities (SSI) as a mechanism to combat fraud in LLC formations, particularly in  Wyoming. This approach enhances transparency and verification for FinCEN obligations, while  ensuring owner privacy, proof of control, and reduced risk for financial institutions.

The first state Registered Agent to implement this is shopping for an office in Star Valley.

Best regards, 

David Roland

 

War

Dear Editor,

I am a US Navy veteran who served in an evacuation center for war casualties as a Hospital Corpsman during the Vietnam War. Helping those young men deal with their injuries – physical and mental – taught me the horrors of war. Working night shifts, I listened to patients who shared the nightmares that would not allow them to close their eyes and sleep. I sat beside kids so maimed they couldn’t leave their beds. I hand-fed soldiers who no longer had hands with which to eat, while keeping a brave face. We were all so young.

We still have no answer why we were involved in that war, and yet here we are again. What is the Iran war about? The administration has offered at least 10 different reasons and goals in the past week. They seem to choose from among them randomly. How will we know we’re done?

Last Sunday, an Iranian drone hit an operations center in Kuwait, and 6 American servicemen lost their lives. The drone apparently snuck through

American defenses without setting off any alerts and struck a target that seems to be unduly vulnerable to such an attack.

I watched Defense Secretary Hegseth’s press conference, hoping to hear his condolences to the families of the deceased. I was mortified by the way the defense secretary, rather than mourning with Americans for whom these men sacrificed their lives, instead whined about the unfairness of press coverage. As he put it: “when a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it’s front-page news….” He complained that the press “only wants to make the president look bad.” Is it unreasonable to investigate tragic events? He seems unable to grasp that the deaths of American are not merely a public-relations problem. When six members of American forces are killed by a drone that slipped through U.S. defenses, the deaths of those service people ARE the story.

The people of the United States deserve more of an explanation for this war. We certainly deserve more of a eulogy for our fallen young people than “tragic things happen.”

Constance Burke

Etna, Wyoming