It would be poor press to announce that a war is about money, but the veneer of pretense is thin. The Syrian war, especially given Russia's involvement is almost certainly about securing passage for natural gas pipelines.

Who thinks the Iraq war was actually about Freedom? That might have been the rallying cry but it was about securing access to oil and securing massive re-building contracts and/or reparation money. Many argue that the 1990s stock market boom was a direct result of the US getting $10/barrel oil via the Iraq war reparation deal, where they repaid the US for the costs of having to attack the US.

Any war where people suddenly have an interest in saving humanity should be viewed very skeptically, since there are hundreds of crises of freedom around the world. If the crisis happens to be on top of a giant oil field, well, then there may be some conflating variable.