It is in the tradition of Western colonial experience that genocide is important in the armoury of conquest. It is couched in the highest of motives and ideals - to civilise the natives or remove a dictator the natives would not - in which only one view matters: that of the invader.

As the United States sank into the Islamic quagmire of Iraq this month, a few thousand miles to the south, in Kigale, Rwanda, Western statesmen gathered to show how sorry they were for the Tutsi-Hutu tribal massacres in which their countries played a less than honourable role to pit one against the other.

When I discussed this with a European ambassador recently, he was quick to assert that Rwanda was a French and Belgian problem while Iraq is a US-British problem.

He hotly contested my view that it did not matter which individual nation was responsible, it follows a shared genocidal practice of Western colonialism.

What the US and its allies want in Iraq is no less than what Belgium wanted in the former Belgian Congo and its offshoots: the riches for its grandees, with a quisling regime in charge. Western political correctness cannot erase the horrors of its past.