Long live the people of Syria!

Kurdish rebels on their way into Syria

War Made Easy reaches into the Orwellian memory hole to expose a 50-year pattern of government deception and media spin that has dragged the United States into one war after another from Vietnam to Iraq.

Narrated by actor and activist Sean Penn, the film exhumes remarkable archival footage of official distortion and exaggeration from LBJ to George W. Bush, revealing in stunning detail how the American news media have uncritically promoted the pro-war messages of successive presidential administrations.

Turkish soldiers take cover from stone throwing Turkish Kurdish protesters near the Mursitpinar border crossing on the Turkish-Syrian border in the Turkish town of Suruc in southeastern Sanliurfa province October 4, 2014

Ayn al-Arab (Arabic: ʿAyn al-ʿArab “Spring of the Arabs”), also known as Kobani (Kurdish: Kobanê or Kobanî) is a city in Aleppo Governorate in northern Syria. The city had a population of 44,821 in the Syrian census of 2004, The population comprises Kurdish, Arab, Turkmen, and Armenian communities.

Kobani began as a simple train station built in 1912 along the Konya-Baghdad Railway; the Kurdish name for the city, Kobanê, is said to derive from the name of a German company that worked on the railway’s construction.

Armenian refugees fleeing genocide in Anatolia founded a village next to the train station in 1915, and were soon joined by Kurds from nearby areas. After demarcation of the border with Turkey along the railway line in 1921, part of the town was left on the other side of the border, today incorporated in the Suruç district as Mürşitpınar and there is an eponymous border crossing.

By the middle of the 20th century, there were three Armenian churches in the town, but most of the Armenian population emigrated to the Soviet Union in the 1960s.

As a consequence of the Syrian civil war, the city came under the control of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in 2012. YPG captured Ayn al-Arab on 19 July 2012. Since July 2012, Ayn al-Arab has been under Kurdish control while the YPG and Kurdish politicians await a declaration of autonomy for the area they consider part of Syrian Kurdistan.

In 2014, it was declared to be the administrative centre of the Kobanê Canton of Syrian Kurdistan. After similar less intense events earlier in 2014, on 2 July the town and surrounding villages came under attack from fighters of the Islamic State (IS).

As of August 2014, it was still under the control of the Kurds. On 16 September the IS resumed its siege of Ayn al-Arab with a full scale assault from the west and south of the city. The border city, located in Syria’s north, is a strategic point for the jihadists; if the city falls to the militants, it would provide a direct link to their captured territories in Aleppo and Raqqa.

Now Turkey’s security forces have fired tear gas at dozens of Turkish and Kurdish activists trying to cross into Syria. On the other side of the border, a major city in Syrian Kurdistan is under increased assault from Islamic State militants.

Authorities used tear gas in the town of Suruc, Sanliurfa province, on Saturday as activists ignored calls to disperse, Turkey’s Hurriyet daily reported. The activists were reportedly trying to cross the border into Syria to help defend the city of Kobane against IS militants.

The Kurds have so far managed to keep control of the area, but militants have pledged to take it over by the beginning of Eid al-Adha, or Feast of Sacrifice.

Turkish soldiers try to prevent Turkish Kurdish protesters to march to the Mursitpinar border crossing on the Turkish-Syrian border in the Turkish town of Suruc in southeastern Sanliurfa province October 4, 2014.

Nevertheless, the city authorities said on Saturday that the Kurds were still in control as fighting between the YPG and IS militants continue, according to Turkey’s Doğan News Agency.

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party announced general mobilization to defend Kobane on Friday, as the city was under heavy shelling from IS, the Lebanese Al-Mayadeen TV channel reported. It also said that IS fighters claimed the southern and eastern approaches to the city.

The battle for Kobane comes after Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Thursday that Ankara would do “whatever we can” to stop IS from capturing Kobane, as the Turkish army received the green light from parliament to engage in military action against the insurgents in Syria and Iraq.

Ankara has strained relations with the largest ethnic Kurdish minority in the country, which has been demanding a separate state for decades while using both peaceful protests and guerrilla warfare. On Saturday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan even compared the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to IS militants.

“The IS for us are the same thing as the PKK. It’s erroneous to consider and regard them separately. There are other terrorist organizations apart from them. And we, as well as the whole world, must assess them right,” Erdogan told reporters at the celebration of Eid al-Adha in Istanbul.

Syria has warned Turkey that any military involvement on its territory would be considered an act of “real aggression against a member state of the United Nations.”

Turkish soldiers take position as they clash with Turkish Kurdish protesters near the Mursitpinar border crossing on the Turkish-Syrian border in the Turkish town of Suruc in southeastern Sanliurfa province October 4, 2014.

Ankara has been one of the Syrian opposition’s major backers during the civil war to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad. Turkey has been widely criticized for turning a blind eye to foreign radicals passing through the country en route to Syria.

On Wednesday the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) claimed that it had opened its first diplomatic consulate in Istanbul. Abu-Omar al-Tunisi, the head of ISIS Foreign Relations announced that ISIS is determined to open its first diplomatic consulate in Istanbul, and in a friendly country like Turkey.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan firmly denied the ISIS presence in the country, however, an official source in the government anonymously stated that Turkey is developing formal relations with ISIS following al-Tunsi’s announcement that ISIS has opened a consulate in Istanbul.

According to Turkish daily Aydinlik, the consulate will provide consular services for all who wish to join the group, send money funds, and will pay the hospital fees of all wounded militants who traveled to Turkey to receive medical treatment.

It is noteworthy that Twitter recently suspended an account that belonged to ISIS and had shown the address and contact information of the ISIS consulate in Istanbul.

The latest comments made by US Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday have outraged Erdogan. Biden stated that the Turkish president had admitted to making a mistake in allowing foreign fighters to cross the Turkish border into Syria. “If Biden told these words, then he will be history to me. I never uttered such remarks,” Hurriyet quoted Erdogan as saying.

Following the Turkish army’s approval to use military force, no specific commitments have yet been made to stop IS. Meanwhile, airstrikes launched by the US-led coalition on Syria do not appear to be slowing down the advance of IS militants.

Dr. Alan Sabrosky (Ph.D, University of Michigan) is a ten-year US Marine Corps veteran and a 1986 graduate of the US Army War College. In a phone interview with Press TV on Tuesday while commenting on Washington-led coalition airstrikes in Syria that began last week he said “As far as I can tell, this is simply an attempt by the Administration to do what it could not do a year ago.”

“What I can see happening is that the targets they’re selecting are those that have, in many cases, no military value at all to ISIS or any other rebel group but really are intended to break whatever infrastructure the Syrian government will have when the fighting is over, such as: the Conoco oil refinery and the grain elevator” Sabrosky said.

Washington intends to inflict “such damage to the economic and industrial infrastructure within Syria that any Syrian government after the fighting will be so weakened that it will be vulnerable to further attacks.”

The White House has now acknowledged for the first time that strict standards President Obama imposed last year to prevent civilian deaths from U.S. drone strikes will not apply to U.S. military operations in Syria and Iraq.

“Airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria have served as launching point for far more than missiles. Those military decisions cost the U.S. millions of dollars a day, and defense contractors pocket much of that money. (Video via U.S. Navy)

Bloomberg reports in mid-September just ahead of airstrikes in Syria, defense firms Lockheed Martin, Northrop, Raytheon and General Dynamics Corporation all set stock price records.

A chief investment officer based out of Chicago said, “To the extent we can shift away from relying on troops and rely more heavily on equipment — that could present an opportunity.”

“Presenting an opportunity” is the kind of wording to make anti-war advocates cringe, but there’s no doubt the companies and their shareholders are making money off the unusually large number of conflicts around the world.”* The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.

The US-led military operation against the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) militants has likely so far cost between $780 and $930 million, according to an estimate by Washington-based think tank specializing in defense issues.

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