Injured Dogs

Those two sad-looking, T-shirted field spaniels are Lea (on the left) and Mo’i (on the right). Within the space of a week, both of them managed to cause a late-night trip to the emergency veterinary hospital!

First was Mo’i. We had a mole removed (and tested for malignancy); a routine procedure. It was benign, which is wonderful. But the six stitches that closed the wound were to much for Mo’i — he chewed them out one evening. We discovered him with a gaping wound and no stitches — so off to the hospital we went.

Then just a couple of days after that, as we were getting ready to go to bed, we discovered a huge swelling on Lea’s front-right shoulder. We knew darned well it hadn’t been there just a few hours prior, and we were concerned about that fast growth. So off we went to the emergency veterinary hospital again! They diagnosed it as an infected abscess, and she had minor surgery that night to drain it and explore for the cause (suspect: foxtail). But the exploratory surgery found no cause at all, so we don’t know why she suddenly developed this alarming infection…

As I write this, Mo’i is almost completely healed — enough that he’ll be running in an agility competition this Thursday. Lea had her drain removed a few days ago, and is healing nicely — but it will be a couple of weeks before she can run again.

And the T-Shirts? They’re wearing them as a way to keep them from biting out their stitches. The only other way to keep those stitches intact is with a great big conical collar (the “Elizabethan collar"). The dogs really hate those things, so we prefer the T-Shirt route…

Mercenary Agency

StrategyPage has an interesting article about what troops are actually doing the U.N. peacekeeping duties around the world. Where the bullets are actually flying, those peacekeeping duties are dominated by South Asian troops. The European, Japanese, and Korean troops that are participating in these duties tend to be in the relatively safe areas, especially behind the lines in logistics roles:

The wealthier nations don’t like to send their own troops, because such missions are not politically popular. Sometimes they do anyway, but the politicians pay the price, and often pull the plug on the effort if it causes too much negative feedback from the voters. But for the South Asian nations, the peacekeeping is a source of national pride. Even the losses (123 Indians, 95 Pakistanis, 80 Bangladeshis and 56 Nepalis killed so far) do not discourage the folks back home, but simply reinforce the honorable and courageous nature of the service.

Pondering this, I realized that the U.N. is effectively an agency for mercenaries — the U.N. pays attractive wages and benefits for soldiers to do its “dirty work", and the rich nations pay for it. The U.S. and a few of our allies are exceptions to this general pattern, but otherwise it holds quite well. The fact that the U.N. is the paymaster (and not the rich nations directly) apparently puts enough makeup on the otherwise unattractive notion of using mercenaries so that the oh-so-moral rich nations (I’m thinking especially of Europe here, and most especially of France and Germany) can feel good about it. But wash off that makeup and look at the simple facts: those South Asian soldiers are paid (albeit indirectly) to do the fighting that the rich nations can’t muster the cojones to do themselves…

Through my own reading of history, I associate the use of mercenaries (and especially a dependence on mercenaries) with societies or cultures that are near the end of their rope. Prior to reading this article, I hadn’t thought of the U.N. as a mercenary agency. Now that I am, I’m also wondering what this portends for (especially) Europe…