Malmédy: fair and balanced June 29, 2006

On December 17, 1944, near Malmédy in Belgium, 84 American G.I.s were murdered in cold blood by soldiers of Kampfgruppe (KGr.) Peiper, the leading formation of the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. An analysis of the reports shows that forty-three of the bodies had gunshot wounds to the head and nine still had their arms raised above their heads.

This is a report of what historians think might have happened.

On October 3, 2005, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly defended U.S. troops’ actions at Abu Ghraib in Iraq during a debate with General Wesley Clark. O’Reilly made the following statement:

On May 30, 2006, this time in the course of defending the Haditha massacre to General Clark, O’Reilly repeated his statement about the Malmédy massacre. Subsequently, Fox News changed the written transcript to have O’Reilly saying “Normandy” instead of “Malmédy”, but changed it back after they were called on it.

Here’s what MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann had to say about O’Reilly’s “mistake”. (Note: some of these videos contain disturbing images, if no less than the stuff we aren’t allowed to see happening in Iraq.)



And this is Olbermann’s followup, with a fascinating history of the lies about this incident:

Olbermann said it, and so should anyone else: who’s “supporting the troops” here, and who’s attacking them?