We have got used to the spectacle of Clintonite politicians around the world making rhetorical flourishes as they apologise for slavery or what was done to the Maoris, American Indians or Aborigines. It is the politics of remote catharsis: you appropriate the moral high ground by showing an apparent humility and contrition about sins which were not yours, about events safely concluded before you were born. The extraordinary thing about Clinton's apology for Rwanda was that the genocide really had happened on his watch. But the apology cost him nothing. Rwanda was far away, obscure, it was only Africa: nobody really blamed him and he knew it. Melvern is determined that he should not get off the hook: she shows convincingly that he and his advisers knew precisely what was happening, and decided to affect ignorance and shut down the channels of communication until it was over. Clinton had been traumatised by the fate of the US mission sent to Somalia in 1992. The American force was then placed under UN command - a fact celebrated by Madeleine Albright as "an unprecedented enterprise aimed at nothing less than the restoration of an entire country". The result was that 18 US Rangers were killed, their bodies dragged through the streets of Mogadishu; more were trapped and wounded, saved only by Malaysian and Turkish troops driving Pakistani tanks. It was an unspeakable humiliation. Clinton withdrew his troops on the spot. After that, the last thing in the world he wanted to hear about was an African crisis requiring American ground troops.