I think the International Criminal Court could be a threat to American security interests because the prosecutor of the court has enormous discretion in going after war crimes. And the way the Statute of Rome is written responsibility for war crimes can be taken all the way up the chain of command.

After every war someone has to tidy up.

The Berlin Wall wasn't the only barrier to fall after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Traditional barriers to the flow of money trade people and ideas also fell.

Until democracy in effective enthusiastic action fills the vacuum created by the power of modern inventions we may expect the fascists to increase in power after the war both in the United States and in the world.

After every major conflict - World War I World War II Korea Vietnam the fall of the Soviet Union - what happened was that we ultimately hollowed out the force largely by doing deep across-the-board cuts.

What we want to do is reform the welfare system in the way that Tony Blair talked about 13 years ago but never achieved - a system that was created for the days after the Second World War. That prize is now I think achievable.

I remember an article I can't recall who by it was after the fall of the Berlin Wall which said that now the Wall was down there could be no more class war. Only someone with money could ever say such a thing.

The west has a great deal to answer for in the Middle East from Britain's belated empire-building after the First World War to the US and British policy that condemns modern Iraq to the material and social squalor of a half-century ago.

In April 1991 after the Gulf war Iraq was given 15 days to provide a full and final declaration of all its WMD.

It is the youth who must inherit the tribulation the sorrow... that are the aftermath of war.