The hottest video collection in the Arab world, known as the Death to America Series, is selling out so quickly in Qatar, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Abu Dhabi and Algeria that the video-store chain CamelsBallBusters has had to post security guards outside their franchises to protect store clerks from disappointed customers.
The collection, produced by WeLuvBinLaden Productions (the same people who created the very popular game show World Jewish Conspiracy Jeopardy), has been excerpted on CNN recently and has also been the subject of much analysis by State Department policy and defense wonks. It features speeches, conferences and meetings attended by Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar, and film of terrorist training camps where young Muslim boys and girls learn the kind of tactics Americans got a first-hand dose of last September 11th.
What has not been excerpted on CNN, or given much coverage in the West, is the bonus video which consumers in the Arab world receive along with their Death to America Series collection. Called Osama Bin Laden's Funniest Practical Jokes, Bloopers, Bleeps and Blunders, the video is a half hour of the wackiest moments in the famed Islamofascist's career and is also sold separately through a half-hour infomercial shown nightly on Al-Jazeera.
Through highly-placed sources in Riyadh, The Iconoclast managed to get a copy of the "Bloopers" video earlier this week, and found it did not disappoint. Some of the highlights include Bin Laden and Mullah Omar making prank calls on the Saudi royal family, asking them if their goat spit is running. When one of the Saudi princes answers "yes it is," Bin Laden says (in a disguised, high-pitched voice), "Well then, you'd better go out and catch it!"
Another hilarious moment shows Mullah Omar removing his glass eye and sticking it in among a cluster of grapes which he then offers to a Taliban leader. "Try that one," urges the Mullah, pointing to his glass eye, "it's from Tuscany. They use it to make their best red wines." When the Taliban leader bites into the glass eye, he screams and bleeds profusely from his mouth, causing hilarity and chortling all around.
One of the "blunders" on the video shows Bin Laden personally performing a beheading of a former Al-Qaeda member who decided he wanted to give up the life of violence and hatred and become a fruit vendor in Mazar-e-Sharif instead. Bin Laden "accidentally" chops off the man's right arm first, proclaiming "Oh, woops! I forgot this was a beheading! Sorry." He then does the same to the man's left arm and both legs before finally -- in an act of profound mercy, as the man is seen begging to be put out of his misery and be killed -- chopping off his head.
By far the kookiest moment in the video though, has to be when Bin Laden, speaking to a group of small children at one of his psycho-training camps, begins to weep and tell them he has changed his ways, has seen the light and realizes we are all brothers and sisters, and then suddenly looks out at the children and says "Not!" The children, and various "camp counsellors," are shown laughing uproariously.
Debbie Bin Laden, one of the maniac's fifty daughters, gave an interview to Al-Jazeera last week in which she said the "Bloopers" video would give proof of her dad's tender side. "He's really fun and he loves to make people laugh. The press, or rather, the Judeo-Christian press, has given him a bum rap. He's good with kids and can always find a way to smile about things, no matter how bad they get. Why, I remember at one of my childhood birthday parties, he did a magic act where he pulled a rabbit out of a turban, and then he killed the rabbit, for no reason."
"It was just so zany," added Debbie Bin Laden, "killing an innocent creature like that!"
Ms. Bin Laden went on to say that "I wish CNN would show the 'Bloopers' video to Americans. I think they'd change their opinion of dad."
Marni-Rebecca Malarkey