It is a sad day for democracy when 12 Nobel Peace laureates write a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama urging him to close one of the darkest chapters of recent U.S. history by acknowledging and then rejecting the "flagrant use of torture and other violations of international law" that have been conducted with the excuse of "fighting terrorism" since 2001.
That the recipient of the letter is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate himself makes the situation ludicrous. That he presides over the country purported to be one of the world's leading democracies makes the situation even more incongruous.
For those of us who used to admire Obama for his avowed stand on human rights, his re-election seemed to give him the opportunity to fulfill the promises he made regarding the closure of Guantanamo, the use of torture and the killing of innocent people in several countries in conflict. However, we are still to see a determined action from him on the human rights front, to which he has paid only lip service so far. And it makes us wonder who really holds power in the United States.