Bagram Detainees Treated “Worse Than Animals”

Sunday, June 28th, 2009

An investigation by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has revealed that former detainees at the U.S. Bagram airbase in Afghanistan were beaten, deprived of sleep and threatened with dogs.

The BBC’s conclusions are based on interviews with 27 former detainees who were held at Bagram between 2002 and 2006. None of these men were ever charged with a crime. Hundreds of detainees are still being held in U.S. custody at the Afghan prison without charge or trial.

Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project, told IPS, “The BBC investigation provides further confirmation of the United States’ mistreatment of prisoners at Bagram.”

“These abuses are the direct consequence of decisions made at the highest levels of the U.S. government to avoid the Geneva Convention and forsake the rule of law. For too long, the unlawful detention and mistreatment of prisoners at Bagram has gone on outside the public eye,” he said. “Hopefully, this investigation will help change that.”

“When prisoners are in American custody and under American control, no matter the location, our values and commitment to the rule of law are at stake,” Hafetz said.

In April, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records pertaining to the detention and treatment of prisoners held at Bagram, including the number of people currently detained, their names, citizenship, place of capture and length of detention.

The ACLU is also seeking records pertaining to the process afforded those prisoners to challenge their detention and designation as “enemy combatants”.

“The U.S. government’s detention of hundreds of prisoners at Bagram has been shrouded in complete secrecy,” said Melissa Goodman, an ACLU staff attorney. “The American people have a right to know what’s happening at Bagram and whether prisoners have been tortured there.”

Amnesty International said it was “shocked” by the Bagram claims. It noted that a new detention centre is currently under construction at the camp.

Another prominent human rights organisation, the British-based Reprieve, called on the British government to take action concerning two Pakistanis who it says the U.K. helped render there from Iraq.

“The legal black hole in Bagram underlines the British government’s moral black hole when it comes to rendering two Pakistani prisoners there in 2004,” said Clive Stafford Smith, director of Reprieve. “These men were in British custody in Iraq, were turned over to the U.S., and have now been held for five years without any respect for their legal rights.”

In February 2009, British Defence Secretary John Hutton announced to the House of Commons that Britain had handed two anonymous Pakistani men over to the U.S., and they had subsequently been rendered to Afghanistan, where they were still being held.

“We have been assured that are held in a humane, safe and secure environment, meeting international standards consistent with cultural and religious norms,” Hutton said at the time.

“As we have said all along, beating people and holding them incommunicado is not humane, safe and secure,” Stafford Smith told IPS. “Britain has a moral duty to identify these men, so that we can reunite them with their legal rights, yet Mr. Hutton refuses to do this.”

No prisoner in Bagram has been allowed to see a lawyer, or challenge his detention. According to the BBC, the U.S. justice department argues that because Afghanistan is an active combat zone it is not possible to conduct rigorous inquiries into individual cases and that it would divert precious military resources at a crucial time.

“These men were never in Afghanistan until the UK and the U.S. took them there,” said Stafford Smith. “It is the height of hypocrisy to take someone to Bagram and then claim that it is too dangerous to let them see a lawyer. Even Guantánamo Bay is better than this.”

The Pentagon has denied the BBC’s charges of harsh treatment and insisted that all inmates in the facility are treated humanely.

The Bagram Airbase built by the Soviet military in the 1980s. The approximately 600 people held there are classified as “unlawful enemy combatants”. None was charged with any offence or put on trial - some even received apologies when they were released.

Many allegations of ill-treatment appear repeatedly in the BBC interviews: physical abuse, the use of stress positions, excessive heat or cold, unbearably loud noise, being forced to remove clothes in front of female soldiers.

In four cases detainees were threatened with death at gunpoint.

“They did things that you would not do against animals let alone to humans,” said one inmate.

“They poured cold water on you in winter and hot water in summer. They used dogs against us. They put a pistol or a gun to your head and threatened you with death,” he said.

“They put some kind of medicine in the juice or water to make you sleepless and then they would interrogate you.”

The BBC said its findings were shown to the Pentagon. Lt. Col. Mark Wright, a spokesman for the U.S. secretary of defence, insisted that conditions at Bagram “meet international standards for care and custody”. He said the U.S. Defense Department has a policy of treating detainees humanely.

But he acknowledged that, “There have been well-documented instances where that policy was not followed, and service members have been held accountable for their actions in those cases.”

Since coming to office, U.S. President Barack Obama has banned the use of torture and ordered a review of policy on detainees, which is expected to report next month. But unlike its detainees at the U.S. naval facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, the prisoners at Bagram have no access to lawyers and they cannot challenge their detention.

William Fisher

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Labour government forces one million disabled workers to find work

Sunday, June 28th, 2009

The Brown Labour government is forcing a million disabled, sick and injured workers off social benefits. The vast majority are being driven into low paid employment or onto poor quality training schemes, at the same time as the number of workers losing their jobs soars.

The current drive began in 2001 when the Blair Labour government introduced new regulations in 50 jobcentres, forcing people claiming incapacity benefit to attend “job-focused” interviews every three years or risk losing payments. Blair defended the scheme, saying that “if people are severely disabled and cannot work, we will give them every protection; indeed, we will increase it”.

The then Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Alistair Darling added, “The crucial thing is that I believe that these regulations will mean, for the first time, we can make sure that everyone of working age gets the help and support they are entitled to, because our objective is to make sure we get as many people into work as possible.”

However, guidelines sent out to jobcentre staff made it clear that continued payment of benefits could “be considered only as a last resort when a meeting with a personal adviser is inappropriate and would be of no benefit to the customer. Deferrals should be used infrequently and waivers very rarely.”

In the ensuing period the press was full of lurid stories about “benefit cheats” and “Britain’s sick-note culture”. But claiming invalidity benefit was never an easy option for people unable to find work.

As the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation explained, benefit was not paid automatically when a claimant produced a sick note as the media tried to portray. Claimants had to have paid in sufficient National Insurance contributions during the previous two tax years to qualify. Their cases were regularly reviewed by the Benefits Agency Medical Service and an examination by an Agency doctor was often required. The Agency continued to assess as unfit for work eight out of ten cases referred to it and of the rest, over half successfully appealed. The Association concluded, “This shows that far from being claimed by those who are not really sick or disabled, invalidity benefit is often withdrawn incorrectly.”

Nevertheless, the government pressed ahead, publishing its Green Paper, “A new deal for welfare: Empowering people to work” in 2006. It aims to replace Incapacity and other benefits with the Employment Support Allowance and JobSeekers’ Allowance was called “part of the biggest shake-up of the modern welfare state since the Beveridge Report of the 1940s.”

At the end of 2008, then Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell said the government’s intention was to force virtually every claimant to take steps to get back into work, work for benefit or face sanctions. He declared that the recession “was not an excuse for anyone to avoid getting a job” and quoted a Labour wartime minister, Herbert Morrison, “We have not hands or brains to waste, and no resources to fritter away on those who don’t contribute to our national effort.”

Purnell stated that all 2.7 million Invalidity Benefit / ESA claimants will be tested by 2010 and anyone who can walk more than 400 metres, stand for 30 minutes or climb 12 steps without the aid of a banister would risk losing it.

Claimants now have to show they are “moving towards work”, undertake compulsory Work Focused Interviews and produce Action Plans or risk losing benefit. Only those people with “the most severe disabilities and health conditions” are exempt from “work-focused activity”.

John works as a job training adviser. He spoke to the World Socialist Web Site about the humiliating and degrading treatment handed out to those on incapacity benefits.

At his local job centre the number of unemployed workers has increased six-fold. Group interviews involving up to 15 workers at a time often take place, rather than the one-to-one consultations that used to occur.

Unemployed workers aged 25 or over receive Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) benefits of just over ￡60 a week and those below 25 get an even more miserable ￡48. After six months JSA is stopped and it is means tested so that someone with savings over ￡16,000 will not receive it. Although there is some assistance for housing, the cost of a one-bedroom flat is at least ￡700 a month and the sudden arrival of a ￡140 TV licence or ￡300 water bill makes life impossible. “Some of my clients end up with less than ￡1 a day to spend on food,” Stephenson explained.

Many companies are using the economic crisis to slash wage rates. Semi-skilled jobs such as truck driving that were until recently paid seven, eight or nine pounds an hour are now being advertised at the minimum wage (￡5.80). Increasingly, firms are employing people on promises of higher pay after six months on the minimum wage only to sack them. One of John’s clients came off JSA benefit and took up an offer to be trained as a car mechanic, only to be sacked after working 40 hours a week for ￡60 for six months.

Because of the lack of real jobs, many unemployed and disabled workers are being referred to private companies for advice on “training opportunities.” John explained, “The government says it is spending billions on training but there is no strategy for long-term jobs. In the meantime private companies are making a fortune.”

“The government has made a big fanfare over training. It says the main aim is to get employers to agree to take on someone after training, but I have never seen a letter or contract resulting from this.

“There are a plethora of companies with lucrative contracts to provide training. They are not worth the paper they are written on,” John continued.

“Many courses are mindless and pointless. At the moment there are loads of fork lift truck training courses being advertised, but no jobs for those who complete them. The nearest one I found being advertised was 40 miles away.

John said that, from his experience, the vast majority of workers on incapacity benefits have genuine health issues resulting from industrial injuries, heart attacks, strokes, mental problems and drug addiction. The last thing they need is more pressure on them at such a vulnerable time in their lives. At the end of most interviews he finds himself saying, “How the hell did you get sent to see me? It’s really heart breaking.”

Paul Mitchell

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Obama contemplates Executive Order for detention without charges

Sunday, June 28th, 2009

When Obama first unveiled his “preventive detention” policy, many defenders praised him (and claimed he was different than Bush) because of his vow that — as he put it — “my Administration will work with Congress to develop an appropriate legal regime.” But now, relying exclusively on three Obama officials speaking behind a veil of anonymity, Peter Finn and Dafner Linza of The Washington Post and ProPublica report that the White House is “crafting language for an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely.” TPM calls this “the latest installment in the Obama administration’s tendency to mimic the Bushies on war on terror tactics.” And the article itself points out the obvious: ”Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war.” Revealingly, the article quotes two Bush national security officials justifying the need for detention without charges.

Anonymous trial balloon articles like this one are difficult to comment on because it’s obviously designed to announce that a certain policy is being considered before it’s actually written, and so none of the key details is known. Would Obama’s new detention powers apply only to current “War on Terror” prisoners at places like Guantanamo and Bagram, or would they also apply to future, not-yet-abducted detainees as well? Would these powers apply to detainees picked up anywhere in the world, far away from “war zones”? Would there be any judicial review or other meaningful oversight provisions so that — even in theory — this was something other than the unilateral, unchecked presidential power to detain indefinitely without charges? None of these important details is known (though the article notes that, under one White House proposal, “ongoing detention would be subject to annual presidential review“; the Emperor, sitting alone, will decree once a year whether they must remain in a cage).

This specific article is even worse than the usual one of its type, since it’s particularly uncritical in passing along administration claims without any skepticism (I addressed each of the “justifications” for Obama’s preventive detention proposal — Obama has to do this because of what Bush did; we can’t get convictions because of Bush’s torture; it’s common in War to do things like this, etc. etc. — here). Worse, the article does not provide any information about the Obama officials whose mission the reporters are dutifully carrying out, so there’s no way to assess their motives.

Those journalistic practices produce egregious sentences like this: ”‘Civil liberties groups have encouraged the administration, that if a prolonged detention system were to be sought, to do it through executive order’, the official said.” I’d love to know which so-called “civil liberties groups” are pushing the White House for an Executive Order establishing the power of indefinite detention. It’s certainly not the ACLU or Center for Constitutional Rights, both of which issued statements vehemently condemning the proposal (ACLU’s Anthony Romero: ”If President Obama issues an executive order authorizing indefinite detention, he’ll be repeating the same mistakes of George Bush”).

All of that said, we already know that Obama wants a system of preventive detention without charges — because he said so explicitly in last month’s “civil liberties” speech ironically and cynically delivered in front of the U.S. Constitution at the National Archives. And it’s hard to imagine how he won’t get what he wants: Republicans are eager to grant the President this detention authority (Sens. Tom Coburn and Lindsey Graham have both gushingly praised Obama’s proposal) and, as the Bush era proved, there are always more than enough Congressional Democrats to join with the GOP caucus to enact any new system of expanded detention and surveillance powers. Absent serious public opposition (and one recent poll shows overwhelming opposition), it seems highly likely that Barack Obama will wield the power to imprison people indefinitely without charges of any kind.

* * * * *

There is one point in particular I really want to highlight about all of this:

There has now emerged a very clear — and very disturbing — pattern whereby Obama is willing to use legal mechanisms and recognize the authority of other branches only if he’s assured that he’ll get the outcome he wants. If he can’t get what he wants from those processes, he’ll just assert Bush-like unilateral powers to bypass those processes and do what he wants anyway. In other words, what distinguishes Obama from the first-term Bush is that Obama is willing to indulge the charade that Congress, the courts and the rule of law have some role to play in political outcomes as long as they give him the power he wants. But where those processes impede Obama’s will, he’ll just bypass them and assert the unilateral power to do what he wants anyway (by contrast, the first-term Bush was unwilling to go to Congress to get expanded powers even where Congress was eager to give them to him; the second-term Bush, like Obama, was willing to allow Congress to endorse his radical proposals: hence, the Military Commissions Act, the Protect America Act, the FISA Amendments Act, etc.).

That, for instance, is the precise pattern that’s driving his suppression of torture photos. Two federal courts ordered the President to release the photos under the 40-year-old Freedom of Information Act. Not wanting to abide by that decision, the White House (using Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman) tried to pressure Congress to enact new legislation vesting the administration with the power to override FOIA. When House progressives blocked that bill, the White House assured Lieberman and Graham that Obama would simply use an Executive Order to decree the photos ”classified” (when they are plainly nothing of the sort) and thus block their release anyway. In other words:

We’ll go to court and work with Congress so we can pretend that we’re not like those bad people in the last administration, but if we don’t get what we want by doing that, we’ll just do it anyway through unilateral Presidential action, using the theories that the last administration so helpfully left behind and which we’ve been aggressively defending in court.

This was also the mentality that shaped Obama’s “civil liberties” speech generally and his “prolonged detention” policy specifically. In that speech, Obama movingly assured us that some of the Guantanamo detainees will be tried in a real court — i.e., only those the DOJ is certain ahead of time they can convict. For those about whom there’s uncertainty, he’s going to create new military commissions to make it easier to obtain convictions, and then try some of the detainees there — i.e., only those they are certain ahead of time they can convict there. For the rest — meaning those about whom Obama can’t be certain he’ll get the outcome he wants in a judicial proceeding or military commission — he’ll just keep them locked up anyway. In other words, he’ll indulge the charade that people he wants to keep in a cage are entitled to some process (a real court or military commissions) only where he knows in advance he will get what he wants; where he doesn’t know that, he’ll bypass those pretty processes and assert the unilateral right to keep them imprisoned anyway.

A government that will give you a trial before imprisoning you only where it knows ahead of time it will win — and, where it doesn’t know that, will just imprison you without a trial — isn’t a government that believes in due process. It’s one that believes in show trials.

And here again, with this Executive Order proposal, we see this same mentality at play. According to the Post article, one motive behind the Executive Order is that “White House officials are increasingly worried that reaching quick agreement with Congress on a new detention system may be impossible.” In other words: we’ll be happy to work with Congress as long as they give us what we want; if they don’t, we’ll just do it anyway using unilateral presidential powers. It’s certainly possible — in fact, I’d say it’s likely — that if Congress passes a preventive detention law, it will be even more Draconian than the one Obama wants. But a President who recognizes Congressional authority only when he likes the outcome — and ignores it when he doesn’t — isn’t a President who actually recognizes Congressional authority at all.

* * * * *

What ultimately matters here is that we not lose sight of the critical point: no matter the form it takes, and no matter which route is used to implement it (act of Congress or executive order), indefinite detention without charges is a repugnant and tyrannical power. Democrats and progressives had no trouble understanding that fact during the last eight years, so they should have no trouble understanding it now. As The New York Times columnist (and Obama supporter) Bob Herbert put it this week: ”Policies that were wrong under George W. Bush are no less wrong because Barack Obama is in the White House.” Herbert also wrote:

Americans should recoil as one against the idea of preventive detention , imprisoning people indefinitely, for years and perhaps for life, without charge and without giving them an opportunity to demonstrate their innocence.

And yet we’ve embraced it, asserting that there are people who are far too dangerous to even think about releasing but who cannot be put on trial because we have no real evidence that they have committed any crime, or because we’ve tortured them and therefore the evidence would not be admissible, or whatever. President Obama is O.K. with this (he calls it “prolonged detention”), but he wants to make sure it is carried out — here comes the oxymoron — fairly and nonabusively.

Proof of guilt? In 21st-century America, there is no longer any need for such annoyances.

Human rights? Ha-ha. That’s a good one.

Just look at the rationale being invoked by Obama officials to justify all of this, from the Post article:

Tawfiq bin Attash, who is accused of involvement in the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 and who was held at a secret CIA prison, could be among those subject to long-term detention, according to one senior official.

Little information on bin Attash’s case has been made public, but officials who have reviewed his file said the Justice Department has concluded that none of the three witnesses against him can be brought to testify in court. One witness, who was jailed in Yemen, escaped several years ago. A second witness remains incarcerated, but the government of Yemen will not allow him to testify.

Administration officials believe that testimony from the only witness in U.S. custody, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, may be inadmissible because he was subjected to harsh interrogation while in CIA custody.

I thought Democrats (and Obama himself) believe that information obtained via “harsh interrogation” is unreliable. Isn’t that supposed to be a core Democratic belief? If so, why would we want to imprison someone as “dangerous” based on unreliable information obtained using those methods? If the accusations against someone were drowned or beaten out of another person, shouldn’t we consider those coerced accusations too unreliable to justify keeping the accused in a cage for years with no trial? And if they’re willing to repeat the accusations in court now that they’re not being tortured — and if we have independent, non-coerced evidence to prove the accusations — why would past abuse bar the use of their testimony (as Marcy Wheeler suggests, the real reason why we’d want to prevent witnesses who were tortured from testifying in a court seems to be “because we’re covering up our own torture”)?

More important, look at the mentality being expressed — and about to be implemented — here: there may be instances where we cannot get convictions because of witness unavailability or other logistical problems, so we’ll just imprison them anyway. Does it really require any effort to demonstrate how dangerous that mentality is — that the President will have the power to order people imprisoned wherever there are some logistical barriers to obtaining convictions? If there’s one principle that can be described as fundamental to the American founding, it’s that the state — and certainly the President — do not have the power to order people imprisoned without charges. Thomas Jefferson said that trials by jury is “the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.” Why is this painfully obvious proposition still necessary to defend after the November election?

UPDATE: I posted this before, but Rachel Maddow’s 7-minute commentary on Obama’s preventive detention proposal was really superb and well worth watching:

On a related note: as I’ve written many times, the area in which Obama is replicating Bush abuses most egregiously is his embrace of Bush’s secrecy obsessions. Jon Stewart last night had much to say on that topic. That Obama is adopting approaches similar to Bush’s in these areas is a view that is obviously spreading — even among Obama supporters — and is becoming increasingly difficult to deny.

UPDATE II: Digby, today:

The irony, of course, is that the man who ran on transparency is actually turning out to be less transparent than the president he excoriated on the campaign trail for his secrecy. Bush and Cheney were pretty upfront about the fact that they believed they had the constitutional right to act in any way they saw fit, regardless of the accepted understanding of the constitution or congressional and judicial prerogatives. Bush declared “I’m the decider” and he meant it. This administration obviously believes it has that right as well — it just pretends otherwise.

I suspect they understand that keeping the folks from losing that freedom loving, patriotic illusion of American exceptionalism is an important part of exercising American political power. And they’re probably right. Bush and Cheney’s biggest mistakes were in being honest about something nobody wants to know.

Relatedly, Booman — a very enthusiastic Obama supporter — documents multiple reasons to be suspicious of the claim that the DOJ cannot prosecute Tawfiq bin Attash (the example Obama officials cited in the Post article). That’s why excessive secrecy is the linchpin of abuse of power — it allows government officials to make dubious and misleading claims without any ability to verify them, all while they operate in the dark.

Glenn Greenwald

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Elite Iraqi troops in forefront after US pullback

Sunday, June 28th, 2009

As Iraqi security services prepare to take back their towns from the Americans on Tuesday, the sharpest arrow in their quiver is an elite, American-trained force with a reputation that leads many Iraqis to call it “the dirty brigade.”

Its real name is the Counter Terrorism Bureau, and its commander insists it’s professional, nonsectarian and not dirty at all.

Violence is already rising and will likely continue after the handover as different factions test the government’s ability to manage without American backup. But Kalib Shegati al-Kenani, the Iraqi Army general who heads the bureau, is confident his force can cope and that his country will not slide into renewed sectarian warfare.

The elite units, armed with high-tech U.S.-made equipment, often pair up with American special forces to go after Iraq’s most wanted foes — both al-Qaida extremists and Shiite militants.

They are thought to have been the main force that assisted the Americans during an offensive in Baghdad’s Sadr City quarter last year to rout Shiite militias, and on operations targeting Sunni insurgents.

Formed soon after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, the force became known as the “Dirty Brigade” because it was secretive and until recently operated outside the Iraqi chain of command, reporting directly to its U.S. handlers.

It was so little known that it even was rumored to be used against the Shiite-dominated government’s opponents in the political mainstream_ a charge denied by the Iraqis and the Americans.

Originally numbering about 4,500 members, it is reported to have doubled in size and now reports directly to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

“We are professional and not sectarian forces, and we bring together people from all sections of the population. Each member of the bureau signs a document vowing not to speak about sectarianism, partisan affairs and nationalities. Their commitment is only to Iraq,” al-Kenani told The Associated Press in an interview this week.

Al-Kenani, a 59-year-old veteran of the eight-year Iran-Iraq War and the first Gulf War, is a Shiite, his deputy is a Sunni and one of his top generals is a Kurd.

The force has sought to reinforce its nonpartisan makeup by refusing to accept recruits who previously served in sectarian militias. Also, says Maj. Gen. Abdul-Wahab al-Saedi, a senior commander, it “does not allow any minister or government official to enter its headquarters to prevent any interference in investigations and security operations.”

Its ranks are made up of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, al-Saedi said, but it does not publish breakdowns.

A statement in Arabic posted on the U.S. military’s Web site acknowledged the public’s “misconceptions about this very viable and important unit.”

It picks its targets on the basis of rigorous checks, the statement said. “In short,” it added, “the CTB’s mission is targeting terrorists, not the Iraqi public or political foes.”

Al-Kenani said the bureau has a good intelligence-gathering machine and “cooperation with all ministries.”

The Americans are already leaving the towns and cities, and once they are gone full responsibility will fall to the Iraqi police and military, which numbered 654,362 members at last count.

Although some troops will remain as trainers and advisers, the remaining 133,000 U.S. military personnel will be confined to base unless called in by the Iraqis. A full withdrawal is envisioned by the end of 2011.

The Iraqi government has declared Tuesday a public holiday.

“June 30 is considered an Iraqi victory day,” al-Kenani said, “and we will all celebrate the withdrawal of American forces.”

Explosions around the country have claimed more than 160 lives since June 20, when a truck bomb in the northern city of Kirkuk killed 82. A bombing in Baghdad’s Shiite district of Sadr City killed at least 61 people on Wednesday.

But al-Kenani said the days of mass violence and near-civil war were over. “Whoever carries out explosions and security breaches after the withdrawal of forces will have no excuse,” he said.

“They were repeatedly bragging about fighting the occupation; now the occupation is out.”

Associated Press Writer Patrick Quinn contributed to this story from Baghdad.

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Pilger: A world of fragility and fear

Sunday, June 28th, 2009

TS Eliot wrote that the point of any journey was to find out where you came from. As I bore my bulging canvas bag to the wharf at Circular Quay, not far from where my Irish great-great-grandparents had landed in leg irons, I hoped the point of my journey would become clearer once my ship had sailed.

The Bretagne was my ship. It was white with blue stripes along the side and had a graceful bow, having been built in Saint-Nazaire as a modest version of the mighty Normandie. Alas, long veins of rust showed, and the crew looked morose. A Greek company now owned it, and the previous day had decanted 600 Greek brides.

The brides had been married “by proxy” in Greece to men in Australia whom they had never met. It worked this way.

Young Greek and Italian men emigrated to Australia in the post-war years to work in the outback or at night in factories.

When the authorities realised an entire gender was missing, they encouraged young women in Greece to write to their bereft male compatriots on the other side of the world. This often resulted in a wedding with the groom present only in a photograph pinned to the wedding cake. When a bride ship docked, anxious men and women would hold up photographs to identify the wife or husband they had never laid eyes on.

Unfortunately, some hearts would change during the month-long voyage, producing a certain anarchy on arrival.

My generation filled these ships on the return voyage to Europe, squeezing into six-berth cabins below the Plimsoll line in order to reach that mystical place called OT - “over there.”

On the wharf that May day, aged 22, I told my mother I would be back in a year or two.

“You won’t be back,” she said.

With departure delayed 12 hours because Captain Nick was missing, we sang our umpteenth Auld Lang Syne, and the beer and tears ran dry. Finally we steamed out into the Pacific. I thought I could see my father’s silhouette on the headland, someone flashed their headlights.

I have read about fellow expatriates who insist that, from a tender age, they longed for cultural betterment elsewhere. Clive James comes to mind.

As the bride ship slid into its first trough of green ocean and salt spray cascaded over those of us still looking back, I was smitten with what I thought was seasickness but was really homesickness - rather like some tropical maladies, it recurs all your life and there is no cure.

Having made it to Singapore, Captain Nick missed, perhaps literally, the next port (Colombo) for reasons unexplained.

As we crossed the Indian Ocean, with fresh water rationed for reasons unexplained, the horizon became a see-sawing line etched in my vision.

The tiny, always empty dance floor remained at an angle and the Italian band were to be found at the rails, lime-green of pallor.

Affordable alcohol ran dry for reasons unexplained, with the exception of sweet vermouth.

Entertainment was provided by a fight between a Greek officer, known as Matinee Idol, and a New Zealander who had thrown him into the ship’s minuscule pool when we crossed the equator.

I interviewed a sheepshearer who was going home to Greece. When the interview was published, the headline asked: “Is this the shortest shearer in Australia?”

Then, one morning, there were red cliffs and, beyond, the Suez Canal.

At Aden, I paid £12 for a Hermes Baby typewriter, which accompanied me to places of upheaval for 30 years, minus only the letter M.

When we landed at Genoa, I fell to the ground. Two years later, the bride ship blew up without loss of life, for reasons unexplained.

The journey taught me how immense the world is, and I remain in awe at the sheer magic of a flight that covers the same 13,000 miles in a day and a night.

That said, when the pilot flying a cargo of rifles, ammunition, stockfish and me into the Biafran war at night bellowed, as we approached the ghostly outline of a dirt road littered with the wreckage of aircraft: “Turn the fucking lights on so I know where to put this thing!” I was also in awe at my own fragility and fear.

Mind you, the art deco piano bar flying across the United States was no less surreal. You can take a shower on the new Airbus A380 after your massage. The magic has become routine, as if the epic scale of things no longer applies.

That is not quite true, and the trigger for these reflections is a poignant story of a journey that was on the front pages recently, but briefly, having now succumbed to Gordon Brown’s perennial crisis and the venality of his associates.

Yet it lingers on.

A backpack and a vaccination card were found and a laptop, and there was a photograph on the web of a container holding the few bodies found floating where Flight AF447 went down on June 1.

I have flown by Air France from Paris to Rio, the fatal route in reverse, and I remember the place where the trade winds collide and the ocean is sucked into the sky and becomes a vortex of a kind. My aircraft then - a Boeing 707 - rose and fell, rose and fell. The fake starlight window in the ceiling provided reassurance.

The news of Flight AF447 is now all but forgotten. I read a dignified statement by Jane and Robin Bjoroy, the parents of Alexander, aged 11, who had visited them during his half-term holiday and was on his way back to school in Bristol on AF447.

They said their son’s death was tragic. It certainly was that, and perhaps a reminder of the epic scale of things.

This article appeared in the New Statesman.

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