Turkish soldier in Syria:
I swear, that looks like a GI Joe-type doll that’s been photoshopped into the background. Someone didn’t actually pull a prank on the Associated Press, did they?
The arms look real, and if you look at the face for a second, you can tell that there would be more detail if the man wasn’t out of focus.
I think the picture looks a bit off because of the size of the helmet and the collar-like shape at the base of his neck. If you cropped the image to just below the shoulders, I don’t think you would see anything weird about it.
I see what the OP is saying, but I agree with Sage Rat. AFAIK, they are not putting arm hair on action figures. 
The helmet looks plastic because it is shiny. The pose is wooden, but his upper hand is holding the rifle strap, not something GI Joe would do.
I have no reason to disbelieve. I mean, I see what you’re saying. But it’s just a weird looking photo. It happens. (I’m a photographer, and there’s been many photos where I’ve had to start out with “this is not a Photoshop” because everyone just assumes “fake” and “'shopped” these days. It’s frustrating.)
The photographer was using a sort-of-wide aperture (i.e. something that wasn’t f/8), so the guy in the background is not in focus, but not totally blurred out like most portrait shots aim for. This little bit of defocusing makes all of the detail disappear, adding to the GI Joe look.
I think we are used to seeing either everything in focus or the subject in focus with everything blurred, but this one is at neither extreme.
It really does look funny.
ETA: I realized this is GQ and real photographers will see my comment (!). Several factors could have give that not-so-large depth of field, even if they were using f/8.
His pose is very GI-Joe like and his hands do not have natural pose to them, but this does not look Shopped to me, and here is why I think so. The lighting and shadows on the figure are consistent with everything else in the photo. The focus on the figure is consistent with everything else the same distance from the lens. The detail on the figure is much more than you would see if a small figure were scaled up for insertion (wrinkles in clothes, separation between fingers, color gradients and texture in rifle). There are a lot of JPEG artifacts, which probably adds to a shoppy look.
Something about the angle and focus makes him look weirdly short to, which I think adds to the impression of him being doll like. Even though judging by the rifle in his hand the actual guy isn’t particularly smaller than average, he looks like he’s much closer to the lens then he actually is, and thus not much larger then the small child in the forground.
I think its a much more subdued version of those pictures people take of skylines with a shallow depth of field that makes the whole city look like its a miniature model (example here).
There’s something about the way his helmet sits on top of his head that gives the impression that the head is larger than it is. The proportions are reminiscent of an action figure.
Why are shadow angles different between the kid and everything else?
The light source is consistent throughout the photo.
Because reality.
Why does the G.I. Joe doll have no shadow off of his left foot?
I’m not saying this is not real…but fight my ignorance. Thanks for the link Sage Rat
He does. The light feature you may be perceiving as empty space below his left foot is in fact a patch of unshadowed ground in front of the foot. This ground is ever so slightly raised (a small bump), obscuring part of the shadow.
Pixels.
You can tell from them, right?
