WASHINGTON, April 10 (UPI) -- This is my final Dogs of War column. Since starting in January 2008, I have covered many different aspects of private military and security contracting, but they have been only a small portion of the total number of issues worth examining.

WASHINGTON, April 3 (UPI) -- Don't look now but it is raining lawyers; or to be more precise, lawsuits. Just consider what has happened in the past two weeks.

WASHINGTON, March 27 (UPI) -- For more than six years, Iraq has served as a test case of the strengths and weaknesses of private military and security contractors. They most often operate well. At times, they are primarily bad. But most of the time, they have elements of both -- meaning that even if a contractor does exactly what it is supposed to do, the end result may still be negative.

WASHINGTON, March 20 (UPI) -- The International Criminal Court issued a warrant on March 4 for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Among other things, he is suspected of "intentionally directing attacks against an important part of the civilian population of Darfur, Sudan, murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians and pillaging their property."

WASHINGTON, March 13 (UPI) -- If, as most people expect, private military and security contractors are increasingly part of America's military establishment and future battlefields, they will need to improve the coordination of their operations with regular military forces.

WASHINGTON, March 6 (UPI) -- An army may travel on its stomach, but it lives to fight another day by studying its history. For the U.S. military, the study of history is not an academic pursuit but a deadly serious business. That is why there are offices like the Air Force Historical Research Agency, the Army Center for Military History, the Naval Historical Center, and the Historical Office of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, to name a few.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- Is the world ready to let private military and security contractors participate in U.N. peace operations? When I ask this, I'm not talking about Hollywood celebrities calling for the firm formerly known as Blackwater to work in Darfur.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- Last Sunday The New York Times reported the American military will begin recruiting skilled immigrants who are living in the United States with temporary visas, offering them the chance to become U.S. citizens in as little as six months.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 (UPI) -- Last week I wrote that obtaining information about private military and security contractors has never been easier than it is now. But if that is so, then why do so many private military and security contractors think news coverage of their activities ranges from poor to abysmal?