Talk:Malmedy massacre

Spelling: Malmedy, not Malmédy

The French name of the city is Malmedy. It neither contains an acute accent, nor any other diacritics. In the English Wikipedia, a kind of hyperforeignism seems to have occurred at some point, in which someone changed the spelling to Malmédy. But as is evident from the French Wikipedia pages about the city and about the 17 December 1944 massacre, and from the French-language version of the city's own website, the name does not contain any diacritics. Therefore I have removed the acute accents and moved the article from "Malmédy massacre" to Malmedy massacre. --Bwiki 00:49, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Possible misunderstanding by Bill O'Reilly does not belong in article

Bill O'Reilly Accuses U.S. Army of Nazi War Crime On October 3rd, 2005, Bill O'Reilly, in a debate with General Wesley Clark stated that the 82nd Airborne were responsible for the Malmédy massacre, and that the victims were the Germans.

Transcript follows...

Gen. Wesley Clark: Because in the United States Army that I served in proudly for 34 years, we did not beat up and torture prisoners. Just a second, Bill ---

Bill O'Reilly: Yeah, but with all due respect, there were atrocities in Vietnam, there were atrocities in World War Two --

Clark: Yes, and they were found, and they were punished.

O'Reilly: -- in World War One, in the Civil War, and the Revolutionary War.

Clark: They were not condoned by the chain of command.

O'Reilly: Yes they were!

Clark: No they weren't.

O'Reilly: Lt. Calley, and Medina in Vietnam.

Clark: They were not condoned by the chain of command, those guys were court-martialed.

O'Reilly: You know -- listen, with all due respect --

Clark: And let me explain something. You go all the way up the chain of command --

O'Reilly: General! You need to look at the Malmedy massacre in World War Two, and the 82nd Airborne who did it!

OK, Bill O'Reilly is a fool who hasn't a clue what he's talking about. What's your point? →Raul654 20:16, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps not to you or me, but apparently to a large percentage of Americans, O'Reilly is not a fool with no clue. By the early 21st century, American knowledge has declined to the point that the Malmedy massacre is considered to be an evil act by the American Army itself.

I saw that interview, and I don't think that is what O'Reilly said. Clark was talking over that sentence and it wasn't clear what O'Reilly was saying. He previously wrote an article published in the Jewish World Review [1], where he said "After German SS troops massacred 86 American soldiers at Malmedy in Belgium on Dec. 17, 1944, some units like the U.S. 11th Armored Division took revenge on captured German soldiers.". I believe that that may have happened, especially considering the emotion that this massacre evoke among the troops.--Rogerd 17:50, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

The quote above is wrong. According to Fox, O'Reilly said the following:

O'REILLY: General, you need to look at the Malmady (ph) massacre in World War II and the 82nd Airborne.

Corrected the quote in the article, and reworded somewhat. He did not explicitly say that US forces were behind massacre, but he did indicate that this was what he meant. Bjelleklang - talk 20:47, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Give me a good reason why a quote by a modern American windbag, expressing a kooky opinion shared by no one in academica, belongs in this *historical World War II* article. This belongs in the O'Reilly article, perhaps, but in the context of this article it is non-notable and not of encyclopedic interest on the topic. The inclusion of this here sure looks like obessiveness with modern politics is bringing things off topic. Unless someone can produce a link to more rational and/or academic paper/article/person making this arguement, I will be removing this item.--67.101.69.30 23:31, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the whole "O'Reilly/Clark incident" has no place in this article. This isn't about what someone said about it in an obscure interview 60 years later, it is about the Malmédy massacre. This has nothing to do with O'Reilly's politics, that I sometimes agree with, and other times not, but this article is about an incident during WWII. --rogerd 01:10, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Won't object! Bjelleklang - talk 01:28, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

It's not a misunderstanding - he did it again. This is notable. Fishhead64 06:54, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I would agree. I imagine there'll be some people looking for accurate information and it'd be nice to have a definitive answer in the article saying what happened, at least until this thing dies down a bit. — ceejayoz ^talk 12:20, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, this is bound to come up again; I've reproduced the original edit (now reverted) here at least until some consensus emerges:

==Misinformation Warning==

- In two separate Bill O'Reilly interviews with General Wesley Clark, once in October 2005 to discuss the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse and once in May 2006 to discuss the alleged Haditha incident, O'Reilly cited the Malmedy Massacre as an example that massacres have always occured in war including by US soldiers in World War II. In the May 2006 interview, O'Reilly told Clark, "In Malmedy, as you know, US Forces captured SS Forces who had their hands in the air and they were unarmed and they shot them down. You know that. It's on the record and documented." O'Reilly has not yet publicly admitted his mistake of reversing the situation and thus making it appear that the massacre near Malmedy was committed by US Soldiers on German SS Troops, instead of the other way around.

MSNBC news anchor Keith Olbermann corrected O'Reilly in no uncertain terms on his hour-long nightly newscast Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. [2]

Bill O'Reilly is an insufferable idiot. And in 'best of three falls' with Charles During, I take Durning hands down.

It seems clear that O'Reilly refers to the aftermath which is the pertinent part of the massacre to his argument with Clark. Clark obviously understood this. However many people that dislike O'Reily have missed it in favor of a chance to criticize him.

I'm not sure about that. I couldn't care less one way or the other about O'Reilly, but the transcripts show that he said US troops committed the malmedy massacre. Then on the Fox transcripts, they changed it to "Normandy". You don't cover up a non-mistake. Of course the Normandy reference is nonsense since you can't retaliate five months in advance.

Anyway, O'Reilly is not the point. I simply think that if a popular media outlet spreads wrogn information (wittingly or unwittingly) it might be a good idea to explicitly correct it here. DMorpheus 14:59, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm the one that submitted the original O'Reilly paragraph. I purposely put it in its own section called "Misinformation Warning" near the end with the intent to not make it a feature of the historical details. I guess I look at this addition as an "urban legends" stopper and was intended to serve as an assistance to those who like to fact check with Wikipedia. I think this paragraph would be removed at a later date when it's obvious that the "misinformation" is not circulating. I respect the historical purpose of the article, I think having a section near the bottom of any historical article that captures any current, newsworthy promulgatation of mistatements by public officials or widely-read media sources is reasonable. If the misinformation becomes a controversy in itself (and gets its own identity) then a separate article makes sense. One could argue that this should be put in Bill O'Reilly's page but I have two reasons to differ, this is one of many things that O'Reilly says and it might not be noteworthy enough compared to some of his other comments. This is not about O'Reilly as much as noting possible misinformation being spread in the public square about this historical incident, so putting it in O'Reilly's page might not be seen by one who has heard lets say a co-worker share this misinformation as fact without referencing O'Reilly as the source. So this person would go to the Malmedy page, and not the O'Reilly page. Personally, I wouldn't put the additional line about Olberman exposing O'Reilly's mistake which someone else added, because that focuses too much on O'Reilly. I wanted to focus on what as actually said as misinformation rather than the event itself.

So who was it that removed it, it only had an IP address and no user account. Can it be added back in until at least a named editor has reviewed it? Whidbey