An Egyptian television station believes it has evidence that the Syrian civil war was probably a U.S. plot hatched in 2001: a “Simpsons” episode featuring Bart, Milhouse, Nelson Muntz and Ralph Wiggum as a boy band with the hit video “Oh Say Can You Rock.”
Rania Badawy of Egypt’s Al Tahrir recently told her audience that cartoon bombs falling past a unique flag in “what must be Syria” prove that “what is happening in Syria today was premeditated.” The broadcast was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
The crux of Ms. Badawy’s “evidence” was the assertion that the flag did not exist in 2001, and yet is now used by Syrian rebels.
The New York Times, besides noting obvious references to Saddam Hussein, corrected the record.
“Syrian opposition did not invent a new flag out of whole cloth in 2011, but simply adopted the old green, white and black tricolor used by Syria for most of three decades beginning in 1932. That flag was replaced by a red, white and black tricolor following a military coup in 1963 that eventually brought Mr. Assad’s father to power,” wrote the Times, adding that the anchor displayed “a lack of familiarity with crucial aspects of both Syrian history and details of the ’Simpsons’ episode.”
The lyrics to the song, from the episode titled ’New Kids on the Blecch,’ also refute the Egyptian host’s assertion that the Middle Eastern nation seen in the video “must” be Syria.
“There’s trouble in a far-off nation. Time to get in love formation. Your love’s more deadly than Saddam. That’s why I gotta drop da bomb!” the characters sing.
The Times also went on to note that the U.S. bombed Iraq in late 1998 following a dispute over United Nations weapons inspections.
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• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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