Very interesting discussion indeed. However, I think some of us are giving more importance to Mr. Senator's letter or whatever it is, than it is required. American senators, like their counterparts in any functioning democracy represent POPULISM or popular opinion and have to issue/post statements on their websites so that their voters know what their representatives are actually doing something for world peace, development and human rights and are upholding the values so dear to them. There are senators who want to put a lot of pressure on China and have their web-campaigns against China. Seems like every senator has gone global. In addition to his/her constituency, he/she is also looking after peoples from Nepal, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan, China and so on. Mr.Leahy seems interested in Nepal. Nothing unusual or important here. If this statement was coming from a State Departmen's official, then it might be worthy of debates/discussions and so on, because they make and implement the policy (yeah, even in democracies, there is a limit to senators' powers!!). Senators can request/ask or even pressure their govt. to do certain things, but its the govt. with its policy making apparatus (in this case, the State Department) that decides. The actual foreign policy is not made by the senators, but by the best minds employed at the State Department who calculate everything in terms of American (strategic) interests. I am not saying the senators do not influence the policy, they do. In Nepal's case, if the pressure build up on the state department, then the American policy on Nepal might change because at this point Nepal is way off America's interests radar. But to have such a radical shift in the foreign policy anytime soon based on 1-2 senators occasisonal satements is very unlikely. Of course, if Mr. Leahy was Mr. Fulbright, then maybe, note maybe, things would be different and the state department would have felt it necessary to take this statement into consideration (even Fulbright had his share of frustrations when it came to Vietnam and other policies). But he is not, and its one of those statements which the state department officials do not take into much consideration when actually making decisions on Nepal. Feel free to disagree.