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Fifth Column

Former US Special Operations Commander Shares AI-Generated Anti-ICE Propaganda About Pretti Shooting

2026-01-27

[RedState] In the aftermath of Saturday's shooting in Minneapolis that left anti-ICE insurgent Alex Pretti dead, an obviously AI-generated photo purporting to clearly show Pretti being executed by Border Patrol agents is making the rounds on social media. That alone isn't surprising; it happens any time there's a major event. What's surprising is the identity of one of the people sharing it as if it's real and using it for anti-government propaganda purposes.

Meet Gen. Raymond A. "Tony" Thomas III, retired, who served as commander of the US Special Operations Command from 2016 to 2019.

While the resolution of the photo is quite good - much better than the grainy phone videos going around - the resolution also allows us to see that the agent kneeling doesn't have a head, and that one of his legs seems a little bionic. Thomas shared the photo in response to posts from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, former US Navy Reserve intelligence officer Jack Posobiec, Attorney General Pam Bondi, venture capitalist Keith Rabois, and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. Why would he do this?

Let's learn a bit more about Gen. Thomas.

Before his time at USSOCOM, Thomas served as Commander, Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he had previously served as a Squadron Commander for the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, or Delta Force. He is now a venture partner at Lux Capital, alongside James Woolsey, former CIA Director.

Woolsey and Thomas also have the CIA in common; Thomas was the Associate Director for Military Affairs at the CIA from 2013-14.

Even though it's been brought to Thomas' attention that this photo is a fake, he hasn't moved to delete it, and prominent leftists are sharing it as if it's real - for their own propaganda purposes, of course.

Chris Jackson, Democrat strategist:

If the legendary @TIME Magazine wants to have any credibility left, this should be their next cover. No more cowardice. No more euphemisms. Call it what it is: authoritarianism in America.

Legacy media keeps sanding down the language while democracy gets gutted in real time.… pic.twitter.com/yF8yTNgNUm
— Chris D. Jackson (@ChrisDJackson) January 26, 2026

Fred Guttenberg, gun-grabber:

95 thousand retards thought this AI slop was real.

The agent kneeling has no head 😂 pic.twitter.com/EKsPWTz053
— Retard Finder (@IfindRetards) January 26, 2026

Huffington Post's White House correspondent, SV Daté:

How can you tell we have an unaccountable secret police force that answers only to Trump?

This person has still not been identified.

In a real police force, that piece of information is released in the very first incident report. pic.twitter.com/DWiSo1EL1u
— S.V. Dáte (@svdate) January 26, 2026