#14 - After the United Nations Security Council authorized

[kgalaraga93]

Hi,

This question was a little challenging for me to get through and understand. My basic interpretation of the passage was that the UNSC authorized the military to intervene in a country in order to make peace in that country, but one country's parliament in the UN who represented his nation condemned the prime minister of his own country for contributing military support to the action. But one parliament leader insists that just because they wanted resolution doesn't mean that they're unwilling to send military and contribute to the action. I see the paradox but don't understand why it exists, which makes it hard for me to come up with a prophase. Clarification for this question would be greatly appreciated, thank you so much.

Kim

[Robert Carroll]

Kim,

The paradox arises because the parliament supports the UN plan, yet the parliament condemned its prime minister for supporting that very same plan. If parliament liked the plan, why oppose the prime minister's support for it? It looks like parliament agrees on the end to be achieved by the UN plan but may disagree on the means chosen for achieving that end. If parliament has some reason to want the prime minister to obey certain formal requirements on committing personnel to the action, parliament may oppose the specific means chosen by the prime minister (or the very fact that it's the prime minister supporting the action) while not opposing the action itself.

Although it's outside the scope of the facts in the stimulus, you can imagine a similar situation in the law. A person could support a certain policy goal but believe it's the job of Congress, not a federal court, to achieve that goal - thus someone could condemn the Supreme Court for ruling in favor of a certain party even though that very same person condemning that actually agrees with the policy position of that party. This would be a situation where there is agreement over the substance of an action but disagreement over the process used to achieve that action.

The situation is similar enough in the stimulus that an analogous prephrase comes to mind - parliament liked what the prime minister was trying to do, but not the way the prime minister did it.

Robert Carroll

[kgalaraga93]

Thank you, great explanation!