A retired four-star general and MSNBC military analyst is getting clobbered on social media after tweeting out footage he claimed showed Ukrainian forces downing a Russian plane, but turned out to be from a video game.
The tweet posted by retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey showed grainy footage of a surface-to-air missile downing a plane. McCaffrey initially called it an example of the “formidable” Ukrainian air defense, but took down the tweet after being relentlessly mocked.
“Russian aircraft getting nailed by UKR missile defense. Russians are losing large numbers of attack aircraft. UKR air defense becoming formidable,” McCaffrey’s original tweet read.
Twitter users were quick to point out that it should have been obvious the footage was not real.
“McCaffrey deleted his tweet but worth noting that the text at the bottom of the video clip he originally shared makes it pretty clear the video is from Arma 3 and not actual combat footage from Ukraine,” wrote Dan Caldwell, a former Marine and current vice president of foreign policy for Stand Together.
Barry McCaffrey, retired 4star general, Clinton appointee and Trump Russia collusion hoax peddler tweets Digital Combat Simulator (DCS) video game footage and tries to pass it off as video evidence of Ukrainian Air superiority over Russia. (Deletes tweet)
pic.twitter.com/5h2oLUY7hQ— Rising serpent 🇺🇸 (@rising_serpent) May 16, 2022
“Barry McCaffrey – “military expert” on MSDNC is using video game footage and saying it is war footage from Ukraine – Hey @MSNBC – this is pathetic and unbelievable even for you,” one Twitter user said.
“Gen McCaffrey was on leftie cable news praising incredible accuracy by Ukrainian ground forces attacking Russian jets,” another user tweeted. “A Problem here is that he is praising a Video Game. Ole fart needs to retire again.”
Others mocked McCaffrey by posting cruder video game scenes and suggesting he might confuse them with real war footage.
Retired US General Barry McCaffrey releases previously unseen still of Russian frigate Admiral Makarov getting nailed. pic.twitter.com/97gkapDQcW
— Entombed and doomed (@entombedndoomed) May 16, 2022
McCaffrey’s bogus post took in at least one pundit, Washington Post contributor and onetime conservative columnist Max Boot, who retweeted it. Boot has come to McCaffrey’s defense before, writing a scathing column about Ohio Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance after Vance criticized the retired general as a war profiteer.
“The issue is not whether McCaffrey served this country honorable,” Vance said. “The issue is whether for 20 years he’s been right about a single major foreign policy decision in this country. … And not just that, but that he has profited from it. There is not a dead American son or daughter overseas who has not made Barry McCaffrey richer.”
McCaffrey, 79, won three Purple Hearts in the Vietnam War and later served in the Clinton administration as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. During the Trump administration, he became a fixture on MSNBC and falsely claimed that Trump was being controlled by Russian President Vladimir Putin.