A Question About Oil Company Profits

Connecting a Few Dots

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 ~ Is Big Oil guilty of war profiteering?

Consider a few facts:

• Oil companies have been making enormous profits for years (thanks in part to public subsidies.)
• Some of those profits are due to speculation on the future price of oil, which they partly control.
• Oil production is up, demand is down, but prices continue to rise.
• We are constantly reminded that we are at war, not just in Afghanistan, but in a global "war on terror" so serious and existentially threatening that it supposedly justifies the curtailment of our civil rights.

So, in summary, we are at war, the war threatens our very survival, our economy and our military are critically dependent on oil, prices are rising not from domestic fundamentals, but from speculation, and profits are huge and growing, despite the damage they cause throughout the economy.

If this is not war profiteering, how should that term be defined?