Bild am Sonntag had a story recently about US mercenaries being seen in Ukraine, working against the separatists. Blackwater / Xe / Academi / Whatever-they-call-themselves-now are scum who might — might! — be operating on their own. But, honestly, what are the chances of that? The US State Department didn’t even try that excuse. They simply said the pictures weren’t taken in the Ukraine. For instance, the LATimes:

This month, corroboration seemed to appear in a photo that showed five men dressed in black and carrying assault weapons on a featureless city street. State Department officials say the men were New Orleans police or contractors trying to prevent looting after the 2005 hurricane. The photo, they say, was doctored by “Kremlin-sponsored websites” to remove the sign of an American fast-food joint.They did not identify the websites, but the photo has rocketed around social media.

Well. Very interesting. You’d have to doctor more than a street sign to make it believable. New Orleans has different vegetation, to begin with. So I wanted to find the picture all the fuss was about.

And nobody I can find links to it. Nobody says “here’s the picture the State Department says was doctored.” I find that odd. If it was so obviously doctored, you’d think they want people to see that, right?

The picture accompanying the Bild article looks like this [original link to Bild, now gone]:

The accompanying video from which that still is taken also shows brown wintry grass and the same armed men, soldiers, and bundled up civilians. It’s definitely not New Orleans, and it’s certainly not as hot as it was there in September 2005. I lived there for 13 years and nothing in New Orleans looks like that. If this is the “Men In Black” video, they’ve photoshopped whoever the suspicious-looking guys are supposed to be (I can’t even tell) into a video taken in some very Ukraino-Russian-looking place. So why isn’t the State Department making it clear to all of us how they know it’s a fake? Or, even easier, insisting there are no Americans in the picture? Is it so obvious to the experts that those are American mercs that there’s no point trying to deny it?