In war whichever side may call itself the victor there are no winners but all are losers.

I mean I was born the day war broke out but I don't remember all the bombs though they did actually break up Liverpool you know. I remember when I was a little older there was big gaps in all the streets where houses used to be. We used to play over them.

From our perspective trying to deal with this continuing campaign of terror if you will the war on terror that we're engaged in this is a continuing enterprise. The people that were involved in some of those activities before 9/11 are still out there.

In every war zone that I've been in there has been a reality and then there has been the public perception of why the war was being fought. In every crisis the issues have been far more complex than the public has been allowed to know.

During the Cold War we lived in coded times when it wasn't easy and there were shades of grey and ambiguity.

There are evils that have the ability to survive identification and go on for ever... money for instance or war.

There was never a war on poverty. Maybe there was a skirmish on poverty.

There's something brave and touching about game girls of all ages keeping themselves smart in hard times - one thinks of those wonderful women during World War II drawing stocking seams in eyebrow pencil up the back of legs stained with gravy browning because nylons were so hard to get hold of.

In war there are no winners.

Berlin is still going through a transition since the Cold War - both in what used to be East and West Berlin. I can still sense the confusion and the struggle for identity there in the streets. There's a pulse to it.