Eight unreliable detainees, several of whom are known to have been tortured, provided a great deal of the intelligence justifying the continuing detention of Gitmo detainees.

In short, the report on Abu Zubaydah reads partly like an attempt to glue together a lot of contradictory information–without assessing the credibility of any one piece of that information–and an either willful or unconscious effort to tell a narrative that justifies what those in charge of Gitmo were doing.

And so it is that our government clings desperately to one of the darkest chapters of our history to legitimize its current actions. Rather than reflect on what that means–how damning it is that we can point only to Andrew Jackson’s illegal treatment of Native Americans to justify our current conduct–the government says simply, “a precedent is a precedent!”

You’ll recall that DOD banned Carol Rosenberg and three other key Gitmo journalists when they published Claus’ name–even though one of them, Michelle Shepherd, had published an on-the-record interview with him in the past. Yet now DOD says–on the eve of the Khadr trial–that it’s okay to publish his name? And as justification, they say his own actions, rather than the public nature of his name, means publishing it does not violate ground rules? Really?

Nouns give an essay substance, and verbs give it motion. Adjectives transform it from black and white into color.

Consider Carol Rosenberg’s comments on the rules at the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay. Like Ansel Adams, she works with black and white, giving us a picture of the administration of justice, such as it is, at Gitmo. Even if she doesn’t use adjectives, they come through on their own. Words like “silly” and “vengeful” and “clueless.”

Holder and Gates give the US a black eye with the way Gitmo represents our system of justice to the world. Rosenberg, on the other hand, does the constitution proud.

There are two pieces of good news in McClatchy’s story reporting that Carol Rosenberg, one of four journalists banned from Gitmo because she published the previously reported name of Omar Khadr’s first interrogator, Joshua Claus, will be allowed to return next week rather than after August 5, as they had previously decided.

On Thursday, the Pentagon banned four reporters from further on-site reporting of military commission trials at Gauntanamo, because they published the previously known name of a witness that the Pentagon was trying to present as anonymous. The impact of this assault on press freedom can be seen immediately in the corporate news coverage of this event, as only McClatchy continues to name the witness in its coverage of the banning.

The government is banning journalists for using a name they’ve used in reports in the past, a name that is publicly known. Is this an attempt to prevent the public from making the connection between two Afghans who died in 2002 and Khadr’s treatment? And/or just an attempt to intimidate the press so the people who know the most about the Gitmo show trials (and particularly Khadr) don’t bring that knowledge to bear on their reporting?

The Obama Administration is using David Iglesias as a shill for its wholesale adoption of the military commissions and prosecution based on torture championed by George bush and Dick Cheney.