Blackwater

You go into the book thinking Erik Prince is Darth Vader.

He's not. He's more akin to Director Krennic: a manipulator of corrupt institutions that simply don't value life.

The real shock of Scahill's excellent coverage is just how banal the evil of the mercenary business is. Much like imperialist and colonial military dogma, the expansion of the private security contractors–mercenaries–boils down to exploitation and indifference. Exploitation of government policy to procure highly suspect security contracts and indifference towards the lives of the foreign populations affected by private militaries that are not beholden to account for war crimes.