Obama's unclear thinking even about "torture", what it is and when its meaning changes

A Tortured Rationale
The President suggests Cheney is right. MAY 1, 2009 wsj
...Obama told a press conference..."I am absolutely convinced... not because there might not have been information that was yielded by these various detainees that were subjected to this treatment, but because we could have gotten this information in other ways." Such as?
..."In his initial interrogation by CIA officers, [9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] was defiant...Mr. Obama must be under the impression that the CIA used waterboarding as a first resort.The President also cited Winston Churchill, who, he said, refused to torture German detainees even when "London was being bombed to smithereens." ****Obama fails to understand that torture in Churchill's instance would have been to no purpose OTHER THAN REVENGE. To distinguish it from merely enhanced interrogation, bad motives ( to punish, to terrorize, to coerce confessions, for sadism or revenge )make anything inadmissible torture . ****... Churchill did authorize the firebombing of Hamburg and other cities, the human toll of which numbered in the hundreds of thousands.****The bombing of Dresden, especially, seems to have been purely an act of vengeance.*** Does Mr. Obama consider that a more ethical approach to our enemies?... A 1978 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights found that "stress positions," "hooding," and sleep deprivation did not, in fact, constitute torture....suggests that the memos would prove the former Veep's point. Mr. Obama should release all the memos and let Americans judge for themselves -- though perhaps that's precisely why he won't release them....
****Obama's willingness to use unsound arguments, and the media's unwillingness to call him on them, reflect a degradation of public discourse and a perversion of democracy. Worse, neither he nor they may be aware of what they do. ****