The Jackal sneers at Al-Queda: "Amateurs!"

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2076014.ece

It appears we do indeed live in an inglorious age, an aged, diabetic man thinks as he sighs in his small room, talking on the phone. Once, spirits were brave, stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women, and small furry... well, small furry creatures might have existed, I grant you. But most of all, things were different. The true men - the kind of guys who had the cojones to fight the corrupt world order - were professionals, calm, collected, and reliable. Almost compassionate, you could say, as they went around doing their daily business.

How his "colleagues" have fallen, Vladimir Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, commonly known as Carlos the Jackal, must have thought in the interview he gave to The Times from his prison cell in France. He appeared sorry that there had been such attacks in London. “Kensington and Chelsea were places where I spent my youth, so I’m not happy about people getting killed in the streets of London,” he said.

Yes, once the work was different, Mr. Ramirez said in a thick Latin American accent. “When we had to eliminate them it was in a cold, simple way with the least pain possible.” None of this car-bomb-in-the-center-of-the-city bull****. Okay, there was that part in 1982 about some trains, a station in Marseilles and a street in Paris, but then it was personal. Hey, when someone bothers your girl, you are supposed to teach them manners, and if it happens to be an entire state, you just have to be a little more eloquent. Such a pity some people have such a memory for slights. Anyway, at least in the old days you knew what you were getting. Now we have Al-Queda and its posse of amateurs. No respect for tradition, no training, nothing.“They are not professionals. They’re not organised. They don’t even know how to make proper explosives or proper detonators.” I mean, seriously, we are talking Noob City here. Getting blown up by those kind of creeps is just adding insult to injury. But hey, it's the age where the No.1 enemy of the free world, the new Mr.Elusive, is a spoiled kid prophet-wannabe with failed kidneys. What else can you expect?

Such a pity, indeed. Apparently Mr. Ramirez has a few regrets of his own. Not, as you might think, the victims - what, less than 100 people, in a life of fighting that is not that much. But, you see, the nickname - how vexing. The Jackal - that was, apparently, the nickname of a Venezuelan Police chief. Really, they find "The Day of the Jackal" in your room and the media goes crazy. Worst of all, it was the Guardian who put it out. "It was my newspaper – I used to buy it every day,” the hero of the class struggle sighs.

And in the meantime, there is precious little social life, few people to share war stories to, and waiting for that new accusation they might bring forth in early 2008. To be honest, things are not going that bad on the personal front - at least he has been married again since the arrest, this time to his lawyer, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre. “I think things are more difficult for her than for me, but this is the price to pay for one’s struggle against the empire,” Mr. Ramirez said. Truly, an example of feminine dedication if ever there was one. Somebody has a napkin? I think something got in my eye.