Fighting fund: The US$564 billion war for profit

From the "I wish more people understood this" file, we get this:

That sort of money could go a long way to addressing so many of the world’s most urgent problems. But war is a very profitable business for some very big and powerful corporations such as Halliburton, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Vinnell and Blackwater. It has been argued that rather than profiteering from war, these corporations are making war for profit. Many of them would not exist as we know them without war.

Halliburton alone has already taken more than $13 billion from no-bid/no-audit US government contracts for providing everything from pizzas to security personnel in Iraq.