New Osama Bin Laden video shows change in Al Qaeda strategy

By Eric J Baker

Bin Laden's new video, Buns of Hatred

PAKISTAN – In a new Al Qaeda video released this weekend, Osama Bin Laden delivered a message to the world: Less cardio and more strength training is the way to go.

“You’ll lose weight from strength training, believe me,” the terrorist mastermind said on the tape, just before leading a 30-minute exercise segment featuring the use of resistance bands and kick boxing with ankle weights.

Bin Laden’s views on a low-carb, high-protein diet are unchanged from previous videos.

Unfortunately for Al Qaeda, the workout tape is only available in VHS format, a factor which is likely to limit sales. In recent years, buyers of home video products have abandoned videotapes in favor of the superior picture and sound offered by DVD and Blu-ray disks. Exercise programs are even available “on demand” from cable companies or streamed via the Internet.

“These guys are so out of touch,” said Diane Getyerfreakon, spokesperson for Netflix, a popular rent-by-mail service. “It’s like they’ve been living in a cave for the past ten years.”

[Update: As this article went to press, it was learned that Ms. Getyerfreakon thought we were discussing the recent bankruptcy of Blockbuster Video, Inc. – Ed.]

When asked to respond to Getyerfreakon’s comments, an unnamed representative for Bin Laden said, “INFIDELS! YOU WILL DIE THE TEN THOUSAND FLAMING DEATHS OF HELL, AND YOUR CHILDREN’S EYE SOCKETS WILL BE RAPED BY GOATS!”

He went on to say, “Hey, man, VHS is making a comeback. Remember when the Great Satan tried so hard to make vinyl go away? Well, you can still buy a turntable. Am I wrong? I didn’t think so.”

No phone listing was found for anyone named Great Satan, but The Anvil was able to contact Evil Bastard, CEO of [classified], the shadowy conglomerate that secretly owns the home-entertainment and consumer-electronics industries, and ask him what he thought of Al Qaeda’s claim.

“The return of VHS, eh? Pretty laughable,” he said. “Those clowns can’t even hold a camcorder without shaking the sh*t out of it, so what do they know?”

Bastard added, “Still, if I want VHS to make a comeback, it will. I decide what people want and don’t want. If I say, ‘type the next paragraph in donkey language,’ you will.”

He-haw. He-haw he-haw he-haw, “He-haw he-haw he-haw he-haw he-haw.” He-haw he-haw he-haw heeeee-haaaaaw.

Al Qaeda’s once-popular fitness videos first gained attention from consumers around nine years ago with the release of the 20-minute Monkey Bar Workout, which involves swinging across a set of monkey bars in billowy cotton robes with a rifle slung across the shoulder, then running to the back of the line and doing it again. For a while, the terror organization marketed a clothing line modeled on the robes, which advertisements promised would, “wick away sweat while encouraging ventilation.”

Competition is fiercer for Al Qaeda these days. In addition to the array of home-video formats to contend with, other organizations have started producing workout videos, flooding a market that often gravitates toward the new and different.

Afghanistan’s Taliban group has already released three volumes in its popular Tali-Bo series, and Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq’s Low-Impact Insurgency has sold well. But perhaps the greatest threat to Bin Laden’s fitness video business comes from the CIA’s Predator Drone workout DVD entitled, One-second Weight Loss.

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