Carlos the Jackal, the notorious terrorist and assassin of the latter part of the last century hasn’t got a nail clipper and he’s peeved. It’s mainly because he’s doing a lot of press and he wants to be presentable, after all, it’s a basic human right to have as much chance of meeting Louis Theroux as anyone else, right?

It always amazed me when people who have taken an oath to destroy an entire society or bring down a government that represents, to them, pure evil and then when they get caught, or their rucksack fails to reap the souls of the infidels around them because it got wet waiting for the train at Luton and now it’s just got cake mix oozing through its webbing, they seem more than happy to bend the principles they killed for if it means a few quid or a comfy cell.

It’s as if they’re saying, “I want to destroy your way of life because it represents all that is wrong with the world… but until I do, can I get a skinny latte and do you have WiFi?”

Osama Bin Laden, erstwhile leader of a terrorist cell that holds the most anti-western viewpoint of them all wasn’t averse to a nice pair of trainers and a designer watch. That video of him rocking back and forth in front of the telly looked more like he was waiting for the Lotto program to skip past the crappy thunderball and get to the main event. You could almost read, “it’s a roll over this week,” in his body language- and while we’re at it, I suspect that he didn’t just go for the ‘Al Jazeera’ channel when it was being installed either. Those long nights in a cave can just fly by if you’ve got Babestation and The Simpsons to keep you going.
It just feels like, if you’re going to take the moral high ground to such an extreme, you should be willing to die by the same sword you came running in screaming with.

Suicide bombers, for example. You don’t get more committed than that. Delusional sheep, bereft of even the most basic common sense they may be, but commitment they do very well. You’d think, therefore, that if their planned trip to everlasting back-patting and more virgins than a ‘World of Warcraft’ convention ended up as six months in an orange boiler suit in Southern Cuba, they’d laugh in the face of such conditions with the kind of scorn only someone who has tried to do to themselves what their captors will always stop short of doing, can pull off. It’s a shame we can’t take some of those that survive and retrain them as call center workers or marriage councilors. A little conversion and they could get employee of the month at The Samaritans on a two day week.

But no. Instead they’re hiring lawyers and complaining that their human rights have been violated. Abu Hamza, the low rent Dr. Evil who hates all non-Muslims and has devoted his life to trying to bring down civilization and turn the world into a Muslim state, screamed like Louis Spence on a ghost train the minute he thought he could lose his council flat and benefits and even appealed against losing his British Citizenship.

So, to any terrorists out there let me just say this: Play fair. I know you hate me, and it’s fair to say I hate you, but come on. Do it properly or not at all. We’ll give you your human rights if we have to because that’s what we do- we’re the human rights people, you’re not. Having them thrust upon you should feel, to you, like a vegan protestor, marching for PETA against vivisection, being given a fur coat and a bucket of KFC so they don’t catch a chill. You should eschew such western ways with a hate-filled ‘harrumph!’ And maybe a gob full of something nasty in the face of your jailer. Screaming that you’ve missed ‘strictly’ and only had four of your five a day just makes you look like the jihad equivalent of Johnny Rotten. One minute he’s sticking pins in the establishment and swearing on TV, the next he’s that property developer off ‘I’m a celebrity’ who advertises butter.