What is blackwater? It's the former name of a US private security contractor now known as academy.

A controversial organization working in the controversial space, a company operating

and the frightening for some intersection of the public and private sector.

Company that profits and dangerous scenarios. But is that necessarily a bad thing?

Someone is needed to step into a disaster scenario. Is it inherently wrong for them to make some money

doing so? Blackwater founder, former Navy SEAL, Eric Prince, has stated that someone has to be in

the business of top 10 worst situations ever. And privately run businesses, not bound by bureaucratic

red tape, can get people and resources to places where people need them much quicker than traditional

options. Blackwater began its training facility for law enforcement in 1997 in the swampy marshes

of North Carolina. They would soon expand to have many subsidiary companies, one of which was a

private security company, very active in Iraq and Afghanistan during the 2000s. And what they would

do there, especially the 2007 shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians by blackwater employees drew a lot

of criticism. How much of that criticism has been fair? Subsequent lawsuits and FBI investigations

would ask was blackwater looking out for its own people at the expense of everyone else

was shooting civilians justified. Blackwater would later evolve into academy, part of a much larger

company, a company no longer owned by Prince. Eric Prince, the person at the heart of the suck,

quite the divisive character. Is he a free market military hero who saves people in need or someone

who capitalizes on the worst days of people's lives or both somewhere in the middle. And again,

is the second part wrong? Someone has to do that, don't they? Should private companies or what are

essentially private armies ever be used by governments as security forces or as troops themselves?

Is that a slippery slope a dangerous one? How loyal can a profit focused military be?

War never fought one, but studied a lot of them. They're always messy. The nature of warfare is

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