War is Just Another Racket

In the LA Times, Advocates of War Now Profit From iraq's Reconstruction

Former CIA Director R. James Woolsey is a prominent example of the phenomenon, mixing his business interests with what he contends are the country's strategic interests. He left the CIA in 1995, but he remains a senior government advisor on intelligence and national security issues, including iraq. Meanwhile, he works for two private companies that do business in iraq and is a partner in a company that invests in firms that provide security and anti-terrorism services.

In Under the Same Sun, Is This Any Way to Run an Occupation, links and commentary about how politically-connected U.S. companies are pilfering iraqi oil money without audits, competitive bidding or oversight.

Beltway lawyers might find all this perfectly legal, but where I come from we call these kind of kickbacks good ol' boy corruption. And the rest of the world will just see the familiar pattern of modern-day colonialism: a rich American elite getting even richer by extracting third-world resources at gunpoint. iraqis will pay for all the Halliburton yachts with the schools, hospitals and highways they won't be able to build. American soldiers are paying for it by dying and the iraqi children may or may not be paying for it with sodimized abuse at Abu Ghraib prison. We will all pay for it for generations because of all the ill-will we're earning and the ignorance we're sowing. How many times do we need to prove that war is just another racket?