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Narrator: Ben Shapiro, political commentator and author of 'Lions and Scavengers.'
“No Man Left Behind is not a motto for the United States. It's a thing we do. It's a promise. And America kept that promise, which is why we are awesome.”
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The U.S. demonstrated overwhelming military asymmetry by deploying 100 elite special operators and dropping 102,000 lbs of precision ordnance to recover a single weapons systems officer.
“We moved hundreds, if not thousands of troops into enemy theater, built a small airstrip overnight, misdirected thousands of enemy troops and operatives, and then we extracted one American under fire.”
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The military executed a 'scorched earth' exit strategy, destroying two of its own multi-million dollar C-130 aircraft to prevent Iran from gaining a propaganda win or sensitive technology.
“We mobilized 100 special operators, massive military wherewithal, landed in your territory, found our guy, got out with zero casualties, and blew up our own planes just because they were stuck in the sand.”
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The CIA successfully utilized a high-stakes deception campaign, leaking false intelligence that the pilot had already exited Iran to divert IRGC resources away from his actual mountain hiding spot.
“The CIA developed a deception plan to try to buy some time. They spread word in Iran that the airman had already been found... the hope was that the Iranians would redirect their resources from the base of the mountain to the roads out of the region.”
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Preventing capture was a critical geopolitical imperative to avoid giving the IRGC 'hostage leverage' similar to tactics used against the Obama administration to split American public opinion.
“If the IRGC had gotten a hold of Americans, that would have become leverage for the IRGC in the same exact way that hostages were leveraged for Hamas.”