In a startling display of shameless war profiteering, Britain's defence secretary has urged the country’s sales directors to pack their suitcases, head to Libya, and make a grab for the highly lucrative spoils of war.

With Gaddafi's murdered corpse still unburied and lying as a gruesome tourist attraction in a Misrata meat store, Philip Hammond in a BBC interview bluntly recommended:

"British companies, even British sales directors, [to be] packing their suitcases and looking to get out to Libya and take part in the reconstruction of that country as soon as they can."

After the plundering of those other recent victims of Western neo-imperial aggression - Afghanistan and Iraq - the tried and tested formula of destroying a sovereign nation's infrastructure and then swooping in to win multi-billion dollar reconstruction contracts should come as a surprise to no-one. It is nonetheless startling to hear the British government dispense with standard humanitarian rhetoric and unashamedly green light British business' feasting on the freshly slaughtered cadaver of Libya's NATO bomb-devastated infrastructure.

The Libyan rebel government, who would not be in power but for NATO's warplanes and British special forces troops on the ground, will no doubt be delighted at the opportunity to cash-in. Last month Libya's intermin prime minister Mustafa Abdul Jalil praised the "brave positions" of Cameron and Sarkozy, stating that:

"They showed us political, economic and military support, which helped the rebels establish a state, and we thank France and the UK for that."

As in Iraq, a mutually beneficial relationship between corruptible Libyan politicians and predatory Western development firms is almost guaranteed.

This sick war profiteering is made even more objectionable by the fact that our corporatist economic system (where crony capitalism sees corporations and state working hand in hand) requires British taxpayers to fund reconstruction projects, and line the pockets of private business.

So not only have taxpayers funded the bombs that have killed thousands of innocent Libyans and destroyed the country’s infrastructure (estimated at over $1 billion for the US and as high as £1.75bn for Britain), but they will also be forced to contribute to its rebuilding, boosting the bottom line of the vulturish corporations! As an example of the potential cost, the reconstruction of Iraq had by 2008 cost the US taxpayer more than $100 billion, with millions lost through fraud and unfinished projects. The BBC reported that:

“The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction blamed delays, costs, poor performance and violence for failure to finish some 855 projects. Many other projects had been falsely described as complete, found the audit of 47,321 reconstruction projects.”

At a time of great economic hardship for many British and American taxpayers, the fact that we are forced to pay for the carnage of the unjustified war in Libya, and then subsidise the post-war profit-chasing of private companies, is disgraceful.

Whilst organised resistance to the political and financial elite is in its infancy, the recent Occupy events offer some small hope that the people are beginning to fight back against the warmongering state and their corporatist cronies. As well as physical occupations, organised tax resistance will be - in this writer's opinion - an important front in the developing battle between the people and the corrupt elite.

It is time to make a stand and say no to this grossly immoral insanity.