Tag Archives: After Action Report

Podcasts

Podcasts from William Lane Craig, William Dembski and Scott Klusendorf

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William Lane Craig vs Victor Stenger

Debate report on the recent re-match debate at Oregon State University.

The MP3 file is here.

Craig argued his standard case, except he added the ontological argument and the contingency argument and removed the fine-tuning argument. Stenger defended the Hartle-Hawking cosmology from over 25 years ago, and made an argument that the universe we see does not fit with what Stenger expects that God ought to do, if he existed.

Their first debate is here. (MP3 file)

Bill also talked briefly about some other recent events, including his events at Harvard and MIT.

William Lane Craig vs Michael Tooley

Debate report on the recent re-match debate at the University of North Carolina – Charlotte.

The MP3 file is here.

This starts with a discussion of how Stenger responded to the ontological argument (blech!). Tooley offers a very strong statement of the evidential/probabilistic/inductive problem of evil. He was very well prepared for the debate – maybe too prepared. He didn’t really respond to Bill Craig’s arguments in the debate – he seemed to read FOUR prepared speeches! The debate included discussions about what counts as evil, and also whether we are in a position to know that God has no reason for permitting a particular instance of apparently gratuitous evil.

Their first debate is here. (Transcript)

I’ve actually met Michael Tooley at a conference, and he’s a really nice quiet guy – but he supports infanticide.

William Lane Craig in South Africa

Debate report on the 4-man debate on the resurrection of Jesus with two South African atheists who have started a kind of liberal “Jesus Seminar” in South Africa. The debate was about how people should understand the text of the New Testament. Bill debated with a partner – Mike Licona.

Bill and Mike defended two contentions: 1) The resurrection was a literal historical event. 2) There is no good reason to deny this historical event. Paul argued from 1 Cor 15, the early sermons in Acts, and empty tomb that is talked in the gospels. One of the professors argued the “history of religions” view – that the New Testament is fiction that borrows from pagan mythology. Craig also argued that the pre-supposition of naturalism is not warranted given the state of the evidence from natural theology (science, etc.).

The MP3 file is here.

Bill seems to be doing a lot of travel around the world lately, which is just awesome!

News

Investigation shows RPGs and RPG rounds found at “Collateral Murder” site

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The Weekly Standard explains the story.

Excerpt:

Wikileaks, the website devoted to publishing classified documents on the Internet, made a splash today with a video claiming to show that the U.S. military “murdered” a Reuters cameraman and other Iraqi “civilians” in Baghdad on July 12, 2007. But a careful watching of the video shows that the U.S. helicopter gun crews that attacked a group of armed men in the then Mahdi Army stronghold of New Baghdad was anything but “Collateral Murder,” as Wikileaks describes the incident.

The Weekly Standard article states, “several of the men are clearly armed with assault rifles; one appears to have an RPG”.

Now consider this post from the Jawa Report, which talks about the after action investigation of the events, and has a clip showing a man holding a long object that looks like an RPG. If you look as the frames from the video, it looks more like an RPG than an AK-47 assault rifle, since there is no curved magazine, but instead a short, stubby grip and a round warhead on the end of it.

Here’s the smoking gun frame:

That looks like an RPG-7 warhead not a curved AK-47 assault rifle magazine

In my judgment, it looks like a Russian RPG-7 or a Chinese Type 69. An RPG is an unguided rocket-propelled grenade that can destroy a Humvee (Hummer) and kill everyone in it with one shot.

An RPG-7/Type 69 looks like this:

And an AK-47 looks like this:

And what’s more, the investigation report (cited by Jawa) says that RPGs and live RPG rounds were found next to the bodies.

The investigation report states:

We remained above the engagement site while Bushmaster sent ground forces to the site. Bushmaster arrived and reported 11 x AIF KIA and found RPGs and RPG rounds at the site. We also witnessed a loaded RPG lying 2-3 blocks south of the engagement site. Bushmaster reported that the first child was wounded and pulled from the van. We were unable to determine that there were children in the vehicle and never saw any children prior to or during the engagement. After viewing the gun tape, were able to determine that both wounded children came from the van. Bushmaster immediately MEDEVAC’d both girls to FOB Loyalty for medical care.

Bushmaster is the call-sign for the ground force that was being covered by the helicopter. The ground force was composed of Humvees. Humvees that would likely be destroyed by an AT RPG round. (And probably by an HE round, too.) At the Jawa Report post, you can see a photo taken from the dead journalist’s camera of the Humvees rounding the corner and coming into line of sight to the RPG-armed terrorists.

I’m sorry, but this is war. This. Is. War. Bad things happen in wars. The world is not a perfect place.

Journalists like those who were killed should not be embedding with terrorists and then expecting to be immune to collateral damage. Our American military forces are the most honorable and moral soldiers in the world. They do their best to follow the rules of engagement. In this case, they acted appropriately. I am thankful and proud of their self-sacrificial service to protect my liberty and the liberty of the Iraqi people. Shame on those in the leftist media who question their judgment. Shame! Shame!