This posting will be a bit image-heavy.
I used to know a journalist who wrote for MTV, for a while. I don’t think she’d say she was a real journalist (whatever that is) any more than a blogger like myself, is. Social media and the “everybody grab a microphone” phenomenon of the early oughts has completely wiped out any line between “responsible journalism” and muck-raking, so I suggest that everyone assume it’s all muck-raking and if they see something that isn’t, do their own research. Of course “do your own research” is hardly a worthwhile recommendation in this time, when troll-farms deliberately stuff bullshit into the upstream of content, to toxify everything that consumes it.
Anyhow, my journalist friend had done some reporting from trouble spots, or as she said, “allegedly from trouble spots.” There is, apparently a kind of journalism that consists of sitting in a hotel bar in a city’s ‘green zone’ behind the barbed wire, filing stories based on second-hand accounts of what is actually going on. That is hardly a new thing, and for all I know it may date back to Thucydides, but there are some interesting tales of how Ernest Hemingway participated in the French liberation – or, in his case, the French libation, by finding an abandoned cafe that still had alcohol behind the bar, and camping there with a coterie of friends, collecting stories of daring-do, none of which were enhanced by all that alcohol in the slightest. One of the things she told me was that they had “photo ops” where they’d pay some “guerilla fighter” to shoot a few bursts into the air with an AK-47 so they could get local color illustrations, then go back to the hotel bar.
One of the things about my brain is I have a very good visual memory. I can’t recall what day of the week it is, but if I’ve seen someone before I will probably remember them – but I’ll have forgotten their name. That translates into a good spatial orientation, as well: drop me in some city I visited before and I can look at the cathedral on the hill, recognize it, interpret the angle of the building, and navigate to the restaurant I remember from 15 years ago. It’s been one of my most useful skills, for the restaurants alone. But it also means I recognize people whether I’m trying to or not.
So, the fellow in the top picture has a great smile; it lights up his whole face, doesn’t it? When I first saw that picture I thought that, and moved on. Later the same day, I saw him again:
There he is on camera-right side of the truck, getting a ride. You can recognize him by his taqiya – the red and gold plush is pretty distinctive as are the armored-knuckle gloves that American special forces operators like to wear (telegraphing the idea that they like to punch people).
Once I had marked that as funny, my brain started finding him everywhere and also coalescing the photos into a single photo-op that mostly took place in the same location.
Why do I call it a “photo op”? Well, he’s got his glove on in one shot, and not in another. I’m going to say that someone asked him to take it off to make him look more casual, or something.
Full costume-change, too. Maybe you’re thinking it’s not the same guy. I thought that for a while, too, before I started seeing lots of different crops and shots from the same photo-op.
The background, there, is the give-away: same face that has been effaced with black paint. By the way, I saw other articles with that effaced billboard used as an argument that women’s role in Afghanistan is going to come under attack, now that the Taliban are in charge. As if it wasn’t under attack during the US-chosen puppet regime? 
See what I mean? “Progress is on the line.” What, is there now a danger that people with guns are roaming around Afghanistan engaging in “search and destroy” missions? I’m not saying that the Taliban are a bunch of great guys but I suspect that they’re political/religious assholes just like most other bands of political/religious assholes. If the US wants to wring its hands over how terrible the Taliban are, they ought to be looking more closely at the Mississippi republican party and its supporters. Who like the tough guy cosplay just as much as the Taliban appear to.
I’m not saying that any of this invalidates anything that anyone may think about anything at all. It’s just me noticing a deliberate photo-op, masquerading as photojournalism. It’s just someone got lazy. Give me $2,000 and I could set up the same sort of sequence of photos, in any city in the US, too. Maybe sell it on some stock photography websites as “Afghanistan action photos” or something like that.
By the way, my journalist friend said that arabs don’t generally shoot their AK-47s into the air, because they aren’t stupid, but they’ll do it for $200.
Well, there is a good chance those pictures were actually taken somewhere in Afghanistan though I suppose you take the same type of picture in parts of Pakistan.
This kind of reminds me of that great picture of Cuban demonstrators protesting the Cuban government; pictures that had been taken in downtown Miami.
I have noticed that in many cases news reports about Syria often have these reporter signing off noting that they are in Istanbul or Beirut. Once in a while I I hear that they are in London or Washington. Definitely good places together on the ground information.
Oops, our Talib just cropped up on NPR, too! I guess they all use the same stock photography service:
jrkrideau@#1:
Well, there is a good chance those pictures were actually taken somewhere in Afghanistan though I suppose you take the same type of picture in parts of Pakistan.
It’s probably shot in Kabul, by some photographer who banged off a card-full of images, got a walk-around and maybe an outfit change or three, and uploaded them to a stock image site.
This kind of reminds me of that great picture of Cuban demonstrators protesting the Cuban government; pictures that had been taken in downtown Miami.
I was not familiar with that incident but – it’s pretty funny.
I have noticed that in many cases news reports about Syria often have these reporter signing off noting that they are in Istanbul or Beirut. Once in a while I I hear that they are in London or Washington. Definitely good places together on the ground information.
I’m not attempting to disparage the serious photographers, like James Nachtwey or Dickey Chappelle who went to the war-zone in order to bring back a more accurate view of what was happening, than the carefully sanitized media official viewpoint. It was war photographers in Vietnam that did some of the best work in getting that horrible war stopped, and it shows that the imperial US is slowly learning that they restricted photographers from taking pictures of the ground reality in Afghanistand and Iraq (and Syria and Libya) they’re not “embedding” photographers unless they promise to toe the war party line.
By the way: real machinegun operators never wrap themselves in linked ammunition belts. I was an M-60 gunner and we had to be fairly careful to lay out the ammunition belts straight and folded over, so they wouldn’t jam feeding into the gun. I wouldn’t worry too much about the belt pulling one’s hand into the gun and mangling one’s fingers unless we’re talking a .50cal M2, which is an ungodly beast of war and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if its feeding mechanism were tough enough to consume a live, struggling person.
Among the various Taliban fighters, there are pictures of people wearing ammo belts bandolier-style – those are the cosplayers. Wearing it that way might bend a link and give you a jam at an awkward time. And if you’re not planning on using the ammo – that shit’s heavy, only a total poseur would wear it as an ornament.
In point of fact, on the times I went on maneuvers, you would not see me wandering about with the M-60, which was usually wrapped in a poncho and a blanket and stuck under the bench-seat of the truck we were traveling in. The freakin’ gun weighs about 25lbs and nobody is going to haul that around like an ornament, either. These Taliban guys may be trying to look scary for the camera, but holding a weapon while you’re standing in the back of a pickup truck is asking to get jounced out of the back and to have sore arms from pointlessly holding a weapon when you’re in a perfectly good truck and truck beds are made for hauling things. Like weapons. And they call machine-guns “heavy weapons” because they’re … heavy.
So if you see someone brandishing stuff to look like a badass, they’re probably a poseur. Or an American gun nut. Speaking of overlapping Venn diagrams…
So, I’m pretty bad with faces myself and does look like the same chap but could it perhaps just be someone who has twins, brothers*, look and dress similarly here?
* FWIW and anecdata only I know but I’m told I look like my three brothers (doesn’t look like it to me! ;-) ) and have been confused with them each a few times.
StevoR@#5:
So, I’m pretty bad with faces myself and does look like the same chap but could it perhaps just be someone who has twins, brothers*, look and dress similarly here?
Maybe, but that wouldn’t explain the background images.
I found what appears to be another example of “Smiley,” this time accompanying a Canadian Press article.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/canadian-special-forces-operating-outside-kabul-airport-to-help-evacuees-officials/ar-AANDBn9?ocid=msedgntp
timgueguen@#7:
I found what appears to be another example of “Smiley,
Yup, that’s our man!
Those shots were probably all taken the same day (‘d guess within a few minutes of eachother)
Interesting photo fact-checking on France-24
https://observers.france24.com/en/middle-east/20210825-taliban-in-afghanistan-debunked-misinformation-images-taken-out-of-context