Former Vice President Cheney may well be reviled in many corners of elite opinion, but with his statement regarding the decision by the Attorney General to investigate the CIA for its “enhanced interrogation” methods hits the nail on the head.

It is extremely easy now, nearly eight years after 9/11 to forget the fear that permeated this nation.  One can argue with much of what the Bush/Cheney Administration did in the aftermath, but do average Americans really worry about the rights of non-citizens who appear to have at the very least been affiliated with groups that seek to kill American civilians?

Even if one accepts that Bush/Cheney went to excess, can one envisage what would have happened if they had failed to go the extra mile and another attack hit the homeland?

This is a classic case of being damned if you do and damned if you don’t.  Obviously, we are not sure these methods saved American lives, after all, Bush/Cheney has every incentive to hype that up.  However, we also cannot be certain that they did not result in stopping terrorist attacks as articulated by Cheney.  Therefore, to go on what looks like a political witch hunt seems counterproductive and, if it results in a chill to the efforts to prevent future attacks by using any means to obtain intelligence, it could yield tragic results.

 I suspect not many people will be worried about Guantanamo Bay and waterboarding if the day after a nuclear bomb destroys part of LA, Osama bin Laden claims credit.  What people will want to know then, just as after 9/11, is why were the “dots not connected.”