James Corbett: "War is a Racket. It always has been".

These words are true now as they were when Major General Smedley Butler first delivered them in a series of speeches in the 1930s. And he should have known. As one of the most decorated and celebrated marines in the history of the Corps, Butler drew on his own experiences around the globe to rail against the business interests that use the US military as muscle men to protect their racket from perceived threats. From National City Bank interests in Haiti to United Fruit plantations in Honduras, from Standard Oil access to China to Brown Brothers operations in Nicaragua, Butler pointed out how intervention after intervention served the business interests of the well-connected, even as American taxpayer money went to foot the bill for these adventures. The names and places may have changed, but the old adage holds: the more things change, the more they stay the same.  The National Transitional Council that is nominally in charge of what is left of Libya,  announced this week that they're beginning a probe of foreign oil contracts brokered during Gaddafi;s reign by his son, Saif al-Islam. Libya is sitting on the largest oil reserves in Africa, and it is no coincidence that within weeks of the start of the NATO campaign last year, the rebels had already secured the country's oil ports and refineries on the Gulf of Sidra and established their own national oil company for negotiating contracts with the invading forces. Although the oil contract probes are supposedly meant to show the transparency of the new "government" and their willingness to root out the graft and kickbacks inherent in the old regime, it's quietly acknowledged that the process will be used to reward the nations that most visibly supported last year's invasions and punish those who were more reticent.