This isn't perhaps the best of perspectives, but it might add some pieces to the puzzle: Oil in Darfur? Special Ops in Somalia?.  As a point of departure, I always hark back to this (somewhat dated but still relevant) article by Robert Higgs: What Does the Administration's Leaked Mea Culpa on Iraq Portend?.

"Beware of the man who does not talk, and the dog that does not bark." Cheyenne