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Iran's Most Powerful Weapon
Townhall ^ | March 20, 2026 | Erick Erickson

Posted on 03/20/2026 10:22:36 AM PDT by MeanWestTexan

Three weeks into a military engagement in Iran, a war Republicans will not call a war, the American and Israeli militaries have all but wiped out Iran's capacity to make war. We have killed their leadership, the replacement leaders, and militia members on the ground. We have destroyed their missile launchers and the factories in which they made the missiles. But Iran still has one of the most powerful weapons in the world on its side, and it is ruthlessly deploying it – the American press corps.

"Families mourn as dead are laid to rest in Tehran," blared the front page, above the fold headline in the Athens Banner-Herald in Athens, Georgia. Beneath the headline, a grieving mother dressed fully in black held a black-framed portrait of her dead son with a black band across the portrait. Her son was in a military uniform.

The Detroit News ran another picture of the same mother with the same story. "Marzia Rezaei reacts while standing near the grave of her son, Erfan, who was killed in strikes, amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, at Behesht-e Zahra cemetery, in Tehran, Iran, March 16, 2026." Reuters, the wire service, got credit for both pictures and the underlying story.

The Detroit News, the Athens Banner-Herald, and other news outlets featuring the dead Iranian soldier ran no front-page stories with the names and faces of the 35,000 Iranian citizens that Erfan Shamei, the dead soldier in the picture, would have been complicit in killing. When Iranian protesters took to the streets in January, the Iranian regime opened fire on them. Outside observers claim up to 150,000 would have been wounded and many killed. Iran itself claims 35,000 were killed.

In Tehran, the regime punished two nurses who had aided the wounded by letting men gang rape them. They were so severely raped that their uteruses had to be removed. The Athens Banner-Herald did not cover that. But a dead regime soldier killed by American and Israeli air strikes warranted front-page news coverage in newspapers across America.

The American press claims it is "just asking questions," which is the same line used by the antisemitic conspiracy theorists online also rooting against the United States and Israel. The press should hold officials accountable, but they are desperate for the American military to fail because they really do not want President Donald Trump to succeed.

For over a decade, the American press has built up a repository of conventional wisdom that Trump keeps defying. Moving the American Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would destabilize the region and lead to war. It did not. Killing Qasem Soleimani would lead to war. It did not. Now, the press is left to assure us that the American and Israeli military are killing all the moderate Iranian leaders and only the hardliners will be left, which will lead to a forever war.

Only in the newsrooms of America could a leadership that killed 35,000 of its citizens, hang gay men by cranes, and gang rapes nurses rendering aid be considered moderate. Now, relying on conventional wisdom, the press tells us we cannot win or even that we are losing. The press relies on voices that process most of their insights through their hatred of Donald Trump and other voices that have long had ties to the Iranian regime.

We captured and jailed Nicolas Maduro and have Cuba on the verge of collapse, with Cubans starting to riot and burn down communist party offices around the country. We have deprived China of oil from Iran. We have deprived Russia of Iranian drones to use in Ukraine. But the American press would rather us believe we are on the verge of defeat at the hands of the fifth deputy under lieutenant of toilet bowls of Iran, the last leader standing and now defiantly a hardliner.

"An ABC News analysis of satellite imagery and verified videos suggests that at least 10 radar sites used by the U.S. and its allies have been struck by Iranian drones or missiles since the start of the war," tweeted that network. Do not wait for ABC News to do the same about Iran. They are rooting for Iran.


TOPICS: Extended News; Iran; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: fakenoozers; iran; mediabias; msm; notawar; officialdemnarrative; pmsnbc; professionalliars; specialmilitaryop; tdsjournos; waronterror

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Our media hates America.
1 posted on 03/20/2026 10:22:36 AM PDT by MeanWestTexan
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To: MeanWestTexan

How true!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


2 posted on 03/20/2026 10:38:35 AM PDT by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin (Freedom is the freedom to discipline yourself so others don't have to do it for you.)
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To: MeanWestTexan

Democrats pursue policies that lead to war and then protest fighting the war.


3 posted on 03/20/2026 10:41:19 AM PDT by SaxxonWoods (Annnd....I voted for this too!)
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To: MeanWestTexan

Making martyrs of the entire theocratic leadership in the Islamic Republic of Iran is supposed to give them moral rectitude?

Nobody mourns the shooting of a rabid dog. It is just a necessary duty to protect all in reach of the rabid dog.


4 posted on 03/20/2026 10:43:11 AM PDT by alloysteel (Coming in high, hot, blind, dead-stick, wheels up, outta gas, and the glide angle of a brick....)
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To: MeanWestTexan

Same here in Oz. We’re treated to endless stories of woe about the world’s economy and the huge costs involved. Not one mention of the cost if Iran acquired nukes.


5 posted on 03/20/2026 10:47:57 AM PDT by mitch5501 ("make your calling and election sure:for if ye do these things ye shall never fall")
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To: MeanWestTexan

For once the slimey little toad got something right.


6 posted on 03/20/2026 10:55:15 AM PDT by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose of a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped)
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To: MeanWestTexan

The US media promotes London/Davos interests.


7 posted on 03/20/2026 11:02:54 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: MeanWestTexan

The DNC/media complex is just as ideological driven as the Iranian Regime .


8 posted on 03/20/2026 11:05:48 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn... )
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To: MeanWestTexan

Iran’s most powerful weapon, is yes, the American news media and its institutional journalists.


9 posted on 03/20/2026 11:16:39 AM PDT by blackdog (The philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.)
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To: MeanWestTexan

Hmmm, I thought Iran’s most powerful weapon would be the Useful Idiots: including TDS folks, liberals, demoncrats, anti-semites... it’s a pretty large group of people, who, if they were living in Iran would be likely to be killed by the Iranian government or its stooges. “Mean West Texan” - great moniker! Well done.


10 posted on 03/20/2026 12:51:25 PM PDT by Tudorfly (All things are possible within the will of God.)
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To: MeanWestTexan

the left has been working for America’s enemies since the mid 60s.

just ask Jane...


11 posted on 03/20/2026 2:47:18 PM PDT by sten (fighting tyranny never goes out of style)
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To: Tudorfly

Yes, but am I a mean West Texan?

Or do I live in meanwest Texas?

And does “mean” mean “average”? Or mean “malicious or cruel”?

Or is it used in the definitional sense, as in “I mean West Texan”?

The world may never know.


12 posted on 03/20/2026 2:54:23 PM PDT by MeanWestTexan (Sometimes There Is No Lesser Of Two Evils)
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To: MeanWestTexan

I’m going with the first one. My first memories are of living in Langtry, Texas, my adopted home town. Border Patrol family. Operation Wetback.


13 posted on 03/20/2026 3:34:37 PM PDT by Tudorfly (All things are possible within the will of God.)
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To: MeanWestTexan

Are your brothers MedianWestTexan and ModeWestTexan? Do you have a child named StandardDeviationWestTexan?

The world wonders ...


14 posted on 03/20/2026 3:49:09 PM PDT by NorthMountain (... the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed)
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To: NorthMountain

Well, we keep things quiet because we don’t like to talk about the Left Tail Distribution cousins who live in Odessa.


15 posted on 03/20/2026 3:55:03 PM PDT by MeanWestTexan (Sometimes There Is No Lesser Of Two Evils)
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