The Briefing with Albert Mohler - Monday, October 5, 2026

Episode Date: October 5, 2026

This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.Part I (00:13 – 09:54)Why Did U.S. Bombers Leave a British Air Base So Quickly? A Clear and Present Danger is Seen As Iran Escalates Terrorism Through The WestU.S. Rushes to Withdraw Bombers From U.K. Air Base After New Threats by The New York Times (Eric Schmitt)Why Iran Escalates by Foreign AffairsPart II (09:54 – 14:45)An Axe in the Cockpit: More Questions Are Raised as New Details Emerge Following The FlyDubai AttackFlydubai hijacker’s hateful rants while studying at British university by The Telegraph (Janet Eastham, Camilla Turner, Lily Shanagher)Part III (14:45 – 23:32)Botched Execution in Tennessee: Capital Punishment, Lawful Authority, Government Competence, and the Medical Duty to Preserve LifeUS murderer Christa Pike unconscious and on ventilator after failed execution, lawyers say by BBC News (Ione Wells and Sareen Habeshian)Part IV (23:32 – 25:51)Brazil Heads to a Runoff: Brazilian Election Takes Center Stage As Right-Wing Leaders Gain Traction In Latin America. Will Brazil Continue This Trend?Polls close in first round of Brazil’s high-stakes presidential election by The Guardian (Tiago Rogero)Sign up to receive The Briefing in your inbox every weekday morning.Follow Dr. Mohler:X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeFor more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.To write Dr. Mohler or submit a question for The Mailbox, go here.

It's Monday, October 5, 2006. I'm Albert Moller, and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Headlines came last night catching many Americans by surprise. Some Americans likely did not know about this development until this morning. Headline, New York Times article by Eric Schmidt, quote, U.S. rushes to withdraw bombers from U.K. Air Base after new threats. So this is really a rather shocking article, because it's not just that the United States is moving, highly advanced bombers, in this case we're talking about B1 bombers, moving them from what had been considered a safe and secure base in the United Kingdom, moving them all the way back to the United States. But it happened in such a hurry that it

appeared, at least, to have a very clear indication of dramatic urgency. And this is acknowledged by some military officials now. As the time said, quote, the withdrawal was highly unusual. Such moves are rarely made so quickly from an allied air base in a peacetime country, thousands of miles from a combat zone. So what in the world is happening last night? How does it fit into the larger picture? Well, at least one of your immediate thoughts should be to those who were arrested in recent days and then released by British authorities having the suspicion that they might be planning some kind of attack on the very airfield we're talking about here, which is a joint base, the United States and UK Air Forces. But what we also have is a general sense, a

general context in which the danger is incredibly high right now for Americans. American armed forces in the Middle East and in the entire region, yes. But now we're talking about a base in the United Kingdom considered safe and secure, far from battle lines. And that just shows how disequilibrium is now working its way through in the aftermath of the American and Israeli attack upon Iran. But I want to be very clear. This disequilibrium didn't begin with the Israeli and U.S. attack upon Iran, a military action that is still quite inconclusive in terms of ongoing military action. But it has been a considerable accelerant. There's no doubt about that. And this has a lot to do with Iran and its ongoing relationships, not only with Israel and the United States, but with the

entire world. And it also has to do the nature of the Iranian regime. Now, of course, just remind yourselves, 1979, Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini. You're talking about the imposition of an Islamic theocracy under the Mullahs, as they are known, and especially the Ayatollah as the supreme leader. And over the course of the last several decades, Iran has been the major source of mayhem in the entire Middle East. And as a matter of fact, Iran actually has done something that no other foreign power could do. It basically put many of the Arab Gulf states and Israel and the United States in a very close working relationship, whether there is any kind of official recognition or official cooperation or not, there is no doubt that there's a very substantial interest in limiting

whatever Iran can do in trying to achieve control over the entire region. But going back to what happened last night, as the Times says, quote, the need to move the bombers out of the base, RAF, that's Royal Air Force Fairford, was deemed so urgent that some of the planes in their flight crews left while aerial refueling aircraft are still being scrambled to support their flights to the United States. At least three of the planes had landed at their home base in South Dakota by Sunday. Speaking of official reports, some officials are speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters. The European Command of the Pentagon confirmed that the bombers had left England. It didn't speak to any new or updated warnings, but the fact is, you do not move

this kind of military equipment from a Royal Air Force base, a joint base there in the United Kingdom, unless there is a dire emergency. Get the planes out. That apparently was the sum and substance of the order. Okay, let's go back to the arrest several days ago of those several men who were suspected of planning some kind of attack there upon the same Royal Air Force Joint Base. But you also remember that they were released on bail

because the British authorities said they didn't have enough evidence to hold them at the time. Since then, there has been a new arrest to which the British government is tying to Iran we are looking at something unfolding here. And as you're thinking about the removal of these bombers, you realize that wouldn't happen without the perception of a clear and present danger to that very important Air Force resource there. The other big story that's coming out over the weekend about this

and about the UK base possible attack or the plans for such an attack, this is, as the time says, an ambitious target for gig economy warfare. The subhead says this. The U.S. war in Iran unleashed small-scale attacks by local criminals or disenfranchised young men hired anonymously to target Jewish and American sites in Europe and North America,

experts say. So what they're saying here is that Iran has been working on a terrorist network for a very long time. And that doesn't come as a great surprise. But the fact is, this is now at some distance. So there is no direct tie on at least some of these suspected terrorist plans to anyone in this, say, revolutionary guards there in Iran. And instead, what there appears to be is the mobilization of people who are operating as lone wolves. They are operating as small bands. This gig economy warfare is one of the big areas of destabilization. It appears that Iran is now working on. The article goes on to tell us. Last Sunday, outside of British airbase, that Iran had branded a legitimate target,

the police arrested, and later released the five men in a murky plot that counterterrorism expert said echoed the previous pattern. So here's what's most important. You have military authorities, intelligence authorities saying, no, this is a recognizable pattern. This does make sense. This is a considerable leap forward. And that was before the warning came with the removal of those strategic bombers. We are talking about the fact that we live in a very dangerous world. And that dangerous world is not now just there. That's Iran's point. Iran is at pains to say, if you create mayhem here. We will create mayhem elsewhere. But there's something bigger going on here. And in order to explain that, I want to bring in an outside expert. That outside expert is

Mohamed Ayatolle Tabar, Associate Professor of International Affairs at Texas A&M University's Bush School of Government and Public Service. He wrote a piece recently in the journal known as Foreign Affairs. Now, foreign affairs is about his establishment in the foreign policy space, as you could imagine. the articles entitled, Why Iran Escalates the Subhead Tehran Strategy to Drive America Out of the Middle East. This is one of those extremely helpful articles that helps to clarify the situation we are observing. The title here, Why Iran Escalates. So you would think that in the condition of Iran at present, the same thing for Iran to do would be to placate the United States and, if possible, Israel, and just act at least as if they are adopting some kind of peaceful intention

and then work to shore up their own defenses and to, frankly, rescue their own economy and then seek to rebuild all their nefarious projects. And that would include, of course, the capacity to build a nuclear weapon. But that's not what Iran does. Iran doesn't act in that predictable pattern. Instead, it does continuously escalate one way or another. And what you have in this article is the explanation of why. Listen to this. quote, Iranian officials are no doubt proud of how their country has fared against Israel in the United States. They publicly bragged about their success and even declared victory,

but in private conversations, the regime's elites remain quite nervous. All right, what are they nervous about? They now believe they can't fulfill their national destiny and perhaps even can't ensure their national survival so long as the United States is active in the Middle East, is an active presence in the Middle East. And so this article is saying that Iran's intention is based on the, quote, belief that Washington will regroup and eventually start fighting again. As Professor Tabar goes on to say, the regime is committed to responding forcefully to any American provocation and perhaps even attacking without one. Listen to this. It does not think it can live with a U.S. presence in the Middle East. That's the new thing. After the active military

action undertaken by the United States and Israel earlier this year, the Iranians, regime, according to this account and by this analysis, has decided it cannot survive so long as the U.S. is active in the area. Therefore, it is willing to endure a lot of pain and to break a lot of rules and to go and do things it had never been willing to do before, even at the risk of escalating tensions with the United States, because it wants to make the American presence there in the Mediterranean and in the Middle East so painful that American public opinion will force any American President to withdraw those forces. And this isn't just a mind game. As this professor says, quote, the regime's fresh approach is designed to do more than deter Washington psychologically.

It is also meant to systematically degrade the U.S. military and intelligence infrastructure in the Middle East. In this sense, Iran is developing its own version of Israel's mowing the lawn strategy in which it carries out repeated, limited attacks intended to weaken, and in adversary's capabilities between major rounds of conflict. In doing so, it hopes to make the United States less able to protect its allies and its own forces from future Iranian strikes and thus less likely to stay in the region. End quote. Now, that was written considerably before the headlines coming last night.

That tells you something. The dots need to be connected. Now, on a similar line, we understand a little bit more about what took place on that fly Dubai jet last week. And it turns out that the co-pilot attacked the captain, the main pilot on the plane with an axe that is located on that aircraft behind the co-pilot's seat in the event there is some kind of emergency and someone inside the cockpit needs an axe. Okay. So here's one of the things that now is very clear to us. Evil defines so many issues. When you look at a policy and you say, why is that policy in place? It's because someone did that. That's why the law had to come along and say, you can't do that. Why is there an axe inside the cockpit rather than outside? It was, of course, because just say 9-11, 2001, the terrorist

attacks. Now you can't go on with a tiny knife and sit on a plane. And by the way, the pilots could not have brought on, neither one of them could have brought on anything like this axe. It was actually installed as a piece of safety equipment behind the co-pilot seat. And that is, according to press reports exactly what he used in attacking the captain. Now, of course, the captain looks increasingly heroic, but it is also increasingly clear that this was a very close run thing. Some aviation analysts looking at the flight path, as it is recorded, it's available, by the way, on some apps, you can actually follow this. There are some aviation officials saying that if the plane had not been taken out of that dive within about a 40-second period,

there would have been no recovery possible. And a part of that is because the plane in this dive caused by the co-pilot intending to crash the plane with all souls aboard, it is now clear that the plane was either at or approaching the speed of sound. And that is well beyond the tolerance that plane was tested and engineered for. We just need to be very thankful it held together.

The rudder did come off, or at least a good bit of the rudder came off. That makes it all the more remarkable that the two pilots on board were able, that is the two extra pilots on board, were able to gain control of the aircraft and land it safely in Saudi Arabia. Now, I said something there, and it does sound strange, the two other pilots on the plane. Okay, so what we were told almost immediately after the news broke, we were told that it just happened that a couple of pilots were on the plane, supposedly deadheading. In other words, they were going where they would be needed for future flights, or indeed that flight crew might have timed out and for that flight they may have required in terms of the return to Dubai another aircrew.

Now there's more to the story and there almost always is. There's more to the story than we know even now, but we do know that there may have been other reasons that that flight crew was on that plane that day. We just need to be very thankful that they were on that plane. And we're looking at a situation once again that fits in with this connect the dot strategy when you're looking at a gig economy. of terrorism. It appears that this man was a mobilized lone wolf, in the words of counterterrorism experts. But he did show himself. Here's the amazing thing. The Telegraph, Major London newspaper, fly Dubai's hijackers, hateful rants while studying at a British university. So this is years ago. He graduated in 2003 from Buckinghamshire New University, known as BNU in the United Kingdom.

And it was with a degree related to aviation, though not in terms of the pilot. itself. And you look at some of the things that he was tweeting. It's very clear this is a very unstable person. It's a person you certainly want to trust with any kind of position of strategic importance, not to mention putting in the cockpit of a passenger airline. It's also clear that he had been a pilot for other airlines, including one other airline in Dubai, but had been released. In other words, anyone who had done any kind of adequate investigation didn't have to have some kind of, you know, major investigative organization do this. The major media were able to do it just by looking at some publicly accessible information, including social media.

One other new issue about this particular story going over the weekend is that the Attorney General of the United Arab Emirates, the UAE, said on Saturday that this was indeed a suspected terrorist act. And that's important. That's very important because the UAE has made that statement out through its own attorney general. And so let's just say it's a smart thing not to deny the obvious, but in diplomatic terms, it's a very important thing that the UAE's Attorney General has acknowledged the situation pretty much as people in Israel and Saudi Arabia and the United States analyze the situation. They're basically in agreement. But next we come back to the United States to speak about what was the intended but not successful execution of Krista Pike, a convicted

murder in the state of Tennessee. This really is a heartbreaking story, and we don't know a lot. Here's what we know. There were two injections of phenobarbital intended to bring about death in terms of official execution undertaken by prison authorities there in Tennessee. This came, as all of Krista Pike's appeals had run out, including not just one, but two rather desperate appeals to the United States Supreme Court on what is known as the emergency docket. Neither of those was successful and thus the authorities there in Tennessee moved towards the execution of Krista Pike. There are so many things behind all of this. First of all, the situation is she was not executed. Indeed, she is now in a hospital where medical authorities are trying to save her life

because of what's described as a botched execution or a failed execution, both of those terms used by people in the government and beyond. It appears that Tennessee prison authorities decided to move forward with the execution. Tennessee's governor had said he would not. not stop it or delay it, and thus it move forward. There are some huge questions. It appears that Tennessee prison authorities decided to move forward with the execution, and there were two doses of the sedative that would end her life that were prepared. But during the injections, it appears now, in retrospect, that the Tennessee authorities must not have found a suitable vein, and Krista Pike at one point complained about the fact there was burning in her arm

that shouldn't happen. That indicates that perhaps the sedative is going directly into her flesh. Okay, so at the end of the day, you do have declarations coming from some people. For example, one activist said this, quote, this was one of the most catastrophic executions in U.S. history. It's just hard to argue with that. Even if that's an anti-death penalty activist, it's very hard to argue with the assessment that this was a catastrophic failure. And it's one of those situations that raises a host of inescapable, unavoidable questions for Christians. we're talking about the death penalty here. The death penalty is a horrible, horrible penalty. It's intended to be so. Let's just remind ourselves that this comes right from the Noahic covenant. I'm reading to you from Genesis chapter 9, beginning in verse 5, where God says to Noah, and for your lifeblood, I will require a reckoning from every beast. I will require it. And from man, from his fellow man, I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Then in verse 6, whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed.

for God made man in his own image. So here's where in scripture God ties the Amago Dei, the image of God directly to the death penalty. If a human being willfully and intentionally takes the life of a human being, he or she forfeits his or her own life in that process, just to make very clear the penalty and the cost of destroying, of killing an image bearer of God. And you look at the death penalty throughout history, and of course it's been applied to many other crimes and many other circumstances, But the one thing Christians know is that the death penalty for intentional murder is actually, it's often defined as capital punishment. It is indeed a rightful punishment.

But, you know, Christians are responsible for an entire context in which it's not just having the right penalty. As in the Mikado, the punishment fit the crime. The punishment fit the crime. It's not just that logic and that morality. It is also that the state, the government, has to conduct its affairs in a reason way and in a respectful and efficient way. In other words, we do not do public executions. We do not have the guillotine or anything else like that for a public display of government power, even when it comes to,

say, the punishment of murderers. We do not do that. But it has now reached the point that pharmaceutical manufacturers aren't allowing states to use their drugs in terms of lethal injections. And so the states like Tennessee have decided to use lethal injections, but they have to get the drugs from some other source, some kind of compounding agency in some cases. And there are questions as to how the drugs were administered, the injections were administered on Wednesday. And there are also questions about the substance itself. Was it outdated? There are all kinds of huge questions here. But I don't think this activist is wrong when she says this is a catastrophic situation. It is. It raises the honor. It raises the integrity. It raises the ethical reality of government when it comes to execution. But you know, we do count on government to be competent in terms of carrying out this kind of penalty. This is a horrible, horrible story. And you know, there are other complexities. I've had several people wonder about why in the world is a hospital. Why are medical authorities not trying to save her life after the state's legal authorities are trying to put her to death? And the answer is because there are

two different realms of responsibility here. The state, in terms of the penitentiary, the jail, the legal authorities, the prison authorities, they have the responsibility to carry out this sentence that didn't happen. But once she's transferred to medical care, those medical doctors, even just under the general rubric of the Hippocratic Oath, they are to save lives. They're to do nothing to take lives or to end lives or to shorten lives. And we as Christians need to insist upon that. So that means that once Christa Pike went into their care, they're going to do everything possible to save her life. It sounds counterintuitive, but we do need to understand there are two different spheres of responsibility here, and we better keep them straight.

The prison system and the hospital both require people to work in them, to lead them, expertise and professionalism, to operate them. But when it comes to the matters of human urgency, they do not have the same responsibility. We should be entirely supportive of the fact that Once someone is handed over to the medical authorities for care, that is exactly what they receive. Clearly, there are going to be some big questions about this. One of the questions, I just want to say this honestly, as someone who is a proponent of the death penalty, I believe that it is a right and righteous penalty for intentional homicide. I believe, frankly, that a society that forfeits the death penalty is going to have a very hard time

making an ultimate statement about the wrongness, the grave evil of capital murder. But I think there's something else here. I think there's something else. And that is that over time, the state can lose its way on this. The government can lose its way on this. And frankly, you have the public opinion that's playing a role here. You also have other issues that are playing a role. But you do have the fact that government is awkward in this at best. I would remind government, however, that Paul in Romans chapter 13 says that the government does not wield the sword, which is indeed a reference to capital punishment in vain. This is a responsibility given to the state. The state needs to live up to this responsibility. I think we're in a situation in which there's likely to be a basic re-evaluation of the death penalty in terms of how it plays out state by state in the United States, perhaps even at the national level.

I do not believe there will be a national, say, law or legislation coming from Congress that would end the death penalty. I'm not even sure exactly how that might happen. I do think, however, this is the kind of story that the average person looks at with horror. And the average person doesn't want to see headlines like this that bring up horror. This is a truly horrible situation. Medical authorities have not even released further information on Krista Pike. there is the suspicion that she is gravely critically ill that much is pretty much known and that she may have suffered in such a way that she is not conscious. And so we are really looking at a very,

very difficult situation. I just want to remind people that they need to look at the murder she committed, which is one of the most grotesque crimes I have seen described in a long time. She did it as an 18-year-old young woman. The woman who was killed was a very young woman about the same age. It was one of the most brutal, horrifying murders I've read about in a very long time. It is important that Christians understand that when you look at the biblical teachings about capital punishment, it is not about brutality, certainly not about government incompetence. It is about a statement on behalf of justice and a statement on behalf of the dignity and the sanctity of every single human life. There's so much going on this week, so much just

coming out of the weekend, plenty for us to discuss, that is sure. But before leaving, I want to mention the weekends vote in Brazil, the presidential election in Brazil, the national election. It turns out it's going to be the first round. There will be a second round, a runoff between the two finalists that will be three weeks. And now the two finalists, classic face-off, left-wing and right-wing. It is interesting that in Brazil, that's pretty much an accurate way to describe the two candidates. On the left, you have the current president, Louise, Ignacio Lula de Silva. he finished second. Coming in first was Flavio Bolsonaro, who's the son of the former right-wing president in Brazil, and that is, of course, Jayao Bolsonaro. And he gained 47% of the vote. Lula received 45% of the vote.

You do the math, that's 92% of the vote. There were 12 candidates, so two together got 92%. The other 10 shared 8%. The runoff, well, it's... too early to predict. But it does just bring to a very clear focus the fact that when you have a face-off here, classic right, classic left, facing off, the voters of Brazil have a very clear and distinct choice to make. That will be coming three weeks from now. By the way, in South America, most of the votes in recent rounds country by country have been left versus right. And in virtually all those elections, the most recent ones, the right has won. will that prevail in Brazil? Time will tell. And the time's ticking about three weeks until that vote.

Meanwhile, as we know, there's a lot of activity headed towards the midterm elections here in the United States, which are also just weeks away. Plenty for us to think about, talk about, and pray about. Thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information, go to my website at Albertmoler.com. You can follow me on X or Twitter by going to X.com forward slash Albert Moller. For information on the Southern Baptist Theological seminary, go to sbt.edu. For information on voice college, just go to voicecollege.com. I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.