Bear Brief, 23 Sep 2026

Bear Man? Well, the Afghan Taliban is reportedly trying to drag Pakistan into the Gulf crisis on purpose.

The Gulf crisis being Iran.

Iran.

And maybe the Saudis, oh yeah, the British are now supplying refueling tankers to the Saudis to refuel their fighters from a purely defensive posture, says the British currently.

Although there's concerns that they'll get embroiled into a larger conflict in the region.

Because that's just kind of how the Middle East works, isn't it? Joel chapter 2, by the way, the Bible, maybe you've read it before, maybe you've heard of it.

Joel chapter 2, and I will send signs from the heavens upon the earth, fire and blood and columns of smoke.

Sounds a lot like munitions and missiles to me.

Because Pakistan has defense commitments to Saudi Arabia, if Islamabad gets pulled into fighting the Houthis, remember them, those people down in Yemen, more dudes in man dresses living up in the mountain, the fewer troops watching the Afghan border.

Oh, oh, asymmetry, hmm.

And the Houthis aren't sitting on their hands either.

After all, according to one anonymous former diplomat, "...it's absolutely driven by a domestic agenda because the Houthis want to end the war on their terms." They just hit Riyadh, which is in Saudi Arabia, directly, which makes it the first reported strike on the capital itself since this round of fighting kicked off in July.

Though Saudi air defenses say they intercepted it, this still marks a significant escalation in the Middle East conflict.

As for that trilateral defense pact that Afghanistan might be counting on, Turkey's foreign minister, the Turks, also part of NATO, allegedly an ally, probably not, though.

Keep an eye on that one.

Why? Why do we do this to ourselves? Good, because, because men in suits like it when men in boots go to die.

That's why.

And it's extraordinarily convenient for them.

Anytime the men in suits see the men in boots getting a little bit uppity, they're like, you know what we need? How about we have a war and we take all the high testosterone aggressive individuals.

We give them guns.

We'll give them guns and we'll put them on the ground.

And the guns will make them, and some body armor and maybe a helmet or something, canteen full of water.

The guns will make them feel like they have a fighting chance against artillery and machine guns and drones and laser beams from space, literally.

And giant planes with gigantic bombs and missiles and all these other things.

All these other things.