Not because we hate our neighbors. Not because we fear prayer. But because we understand history. We understand symbolism. And we understand that culture never collapses all at once. It erodes. Quietly at first. Then loudly.
A tweet making the rounds this week shows video of the Islamic call to prayer, the Adhan, echoing through New York City streets at dawn. Five in the morning. Amplified. Projected over neighborhoods that still carry the scars of September 11, 2001. That date is not ancient history. It is living memory. All of this while a former US President recently confirms alien beings from other worlds are actually a real thing.
Or not. He followed up with saying it was an assumption, he’d never seen evidence.
The 86-year-old actor and comedian has described criticism of the religion as “Islamosceptic”, after MP Rupert Lowe – who is carrying out an independent inquiry into sex abuse gangs – asserted the Muslim Council of Britain stated some of his inquiry’s findings were “Islamophobic.”
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Kirill Zolotarev
[REGNUM] 110 years ago, on the morning of February 16 (February 3, Old Style), 1916, an airplane bearing the Imperial tricolor landed at the headquarters of the Caucasian Army. The pilot, Lieutenant Boris Meyer, reported to the commander, General Nikolai Yudenich: the city and fortress of Erzurum had been captured, most of the Turkish garrison had been killed, many prisoners had been taken, and the remaining Ottoman forces were retreating deep into the Anatolian mountains.
Reporters telegraphed: the commander-in-chief, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, who was at the front, bowed before the line of soldiers and, turning to the front commander, proclaimed: "To the hero of Erzurum, General Yudenich—hurrah!" The officers and enlisted men of the infantry and artillery units responded with three cheers...
Former pilot and former Kolchak officer Boris Mertsalov (aviator Meyer changed his German surname to a Russian one in 1916) lived out his days as a penniless emigrant in Warsaw.
The former commander of the White Northwestern Army, Yudenich, and Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich (who had once been a contender for the throne) also died abroad, albeit in the more “fashionable” Cannes and Antibes.
Before their death (and they died at about the same time, in 1929-33), the heroes could well have recalled one of the main victories in their lives and in the history of the Great War.
But during Soviet times, the Battle of Erzurum disappeared from collective memory, like many other events of the "imperialist massacre." Even today, this battle of World War I is rarely remembered.
However, for the Ottoman Empire, the defeat at Erzurum (or Erzurum, as the city is now known) was more than just the surrender of a single fortified area to the 3rd Army. And it wasn't just trouble for the commander of the Turkish Caucasian Army, Abdulkerim Pasha, who was immediately dismissed from his post by the enraged Minister of War Enver Pasha.
It was a blow to the control center of the defensive line in Turkish Armenia, which the Ottomans themselves and their allies, the Germans, were accustomed to considering a “lock without a key.”
MORE IMPORTANT THAN IT SEEMED ON THE MAP
The historiography of the Erzurum operation often emphasizes that this was a first-class fortress, protected by the Gyaur-Dag (Infidels' Mountain) ridge and other natural heights. These were complemented by rings of forts that formed a defensive belt.
The result was even more significant: Russian troops broke through the fortified line and took the city, opening the way for an offensive deep into Turkish territory.
The dry numbers spoke louder than any "lyrical details." The 3rd Ottoman Army lost more than half its strength: 66,000 men killed, wounded, and captured. Of those, 13,000 Turks were taken prisoner. The enemy lost 315 guns.
For comparison: after the offensive on Erzurum and the storming of the fortifications, our Caucasian army lost 2.3 thousand killed and 14.7 thousand wounded.
Russian losses were also serious, but the strategic gain was incomparable: the Ottoman Empire suffered a defeat that had an impact on the entire campaign.
Erzurum was the gateway to the roads and valleys that connected the Ottoman Empire's Caucasus front. It provided access to the Black Sea port of Trebizond (Trabzon) and further to the coast, the interior of Eastern Anatolia, and the cities.
The loss of such a point meant the front would begin to disintegrate, reserves would be delayed, and command would collapse. Therefore, the capture of the fortress was not a local success, but an event that changed the balance of power across the entire theater of war.
The region of Armenia occupied by Russian troops by the summer of 1916
In this sense, Erzurum is one of those examples where the Russian military machine acted not out of habit, but unpredictably.
Yudenich's army struck in winter, when the enemy least expected the Russians to launch a major offensive in the mountains in the piercing cold. But this "impossible" choice of season was precisely part of the commander's plan. The Turks were shocked by our army's unexpected onslaught and retreated.
Moreover, Yudenich launched an offensive on a section of the front where the enemy was confident of the security of its fortified lines. And that is precisely why this episode is a painful historical event for Turkey.
HELP FOR ARMENIANS
It's impossible to discuss the Caucasian Front of 1915–1916 without mentioning the Armenian Question. By that time, the Turks were already carrying out genocide against the Christian, primarily Armenian, population of Asia Minor.
In May 1915, the Ottoman Empire's parliament, the Majlis (controlled by Enver Pasha and his fellow Young Turks), approved the "Deportation Law," which became the basis for mass reprisals against Armenians. According to the most conservative estimates, 664,000 people fell victim to the mass deportations and murders. Modern historical studies cite 1.2 million to 1.5 million deaths.
The peak of ethnic cleansing occurred in the months preceding the Russian army's offensive.
Under these conditions, the advance of our troops into Eastern Anatolia, including the occupation of Erzurum and the subsequent advance westward, became a chance for Armenian Christians who had escaped the massacres to survive, receive shelter, medical care, food, and protection.
Sources from the First World War record the fact that thousands of Armenians found refuge in territories occupied by the Russian army in 1916, including the regions of Erzincan and Erzurum.
The Russian administration and state-supported structures provided aid to refugees—on a scale that was colossal for the time. This doesn't diminish the gravity of the overall catastrophe, but it does highlight a simple point: wherever the Russian army arrived, Christians had a chance to survive the war.
For Armenian communities, Russia's victory in this area was perceived as liberation from the "Turkish yoke"—such rhetoric was already heard in letters and public addresses.
Thus, the general of the Russian Imperial Army, later a military figure of the first Republic of Armenia (1918-1920) Andranik Ozanyan emphasized:
"The Caucasian peoples must treat the Russian people with understanding, taking into account that they were protected from the barbarian invasion by Russian soldiers."
The address of the head of the Armenian Diocese of Georgia, Bishop Mesrop (Ter-Movsisyan), stated: “From now on, Armenia is freed from the terrible Turkish yoke, and the Armenian people, blessing your name as holy, pass it on to their future generations.”
And this is where an important point, often overlooked, emerges: Russia's victory had not only military but also humanitarian implications. It limited the space where the Ottoman government could pursue its policy of extermination and displacement with impunity.
In 1916, Russia inflicted a defeat on Turkey that, in terms of scale and planning, ranks alongside the best operations of World War I. The Russian army demonstrated its ability to fight, its capability for complex winter offensives, and its ability to breach "impregnable" fortresses.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin:
[ColonelCassad] When people talk about the importance of the Arctic region, they often completely misrepresent the map. We look at a standard Mercator projection world map, which not only distorts proportions but also gives a false impression of what's where, what's next to what, and what spaces we're talking about.
A truer picture is provided by a view "from space," with the region facing us. Firstly, it's clearly visible that Russia is laying claim to half the region. Yes, it's a gigantic icy wasteland, but half of it is within our zone of exclusive economic interest.
Secondly, we can clearly see the enormous billions of tons of hydrocarbons that could be acquired through Arctic control. Russia currently holds 105 billion tons. Alaska provides the Americans with 40 billion tons, Canada with 61 billion tons (another 65 tons in the Fennoscandia zone). And Greenland alone represents 65 billion tons.
Add 40 billion in Alaska and the continental shelf—and America will have fuel reserves in the Far North comparable to Russia's.
Distance matters, too. The "map from above" clearly shows that places that seem very far away from us are actually quite close. Not quite close. But close enough for long-range missiles, for example, from Greenland.
Because our Far North is a key communications hub (the Northern Sea Route), and home to major cities of colossal industrial and military significance, including Murmansk and Norilsk. This isn't the same as the North for everyone else.
And so all American claims to Greenland, and any other activity in the North, aren't something far away. This is what's happening in our own backyard. And, by the way, that's where the crooks are getting in.In the long term, this could become a problem, especially if the US actually seizes Greenland and deploys missile defense sites and elements of its nuclear triad there, which would undoubtedly undermine nuclear parity and increase the threat to Russia from the north.
It's also worth remembering that Russia's maritime and continental shelf borders are disputed by the West.
#1
I like maps, but the linked maps appears to be in some foreign, possibly Cyrillic, language. Can someone assist me in interpreting the map? Thank you. Good night.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/17/2026 2:36 Comments ||
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#2
Russia has the largest slice, as seen to the right, following USA at the top, ending with Greenland to the left
Starting at 1200 and going clockwise, it's Russia at at 105 million tons of hydrocarbons, then Finland at 65 tons, then Greenland/Denmark at 65 tons, then Canada at 61 tons, and finally USA at 40 tons
#4
The Arctic from Ancient Greek ἄρκτος (árktos) 'bear' is the polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole. As in big bear, little bear constellations. Never having gone south, the Greeks theorized a matching area and named it Antarctica. That is without bear. The arctic has polar bears. Antarctica has no bears. Now tell me about conspiracy theories. :)
And the way I understand things, those peninsulas off of Russia, that jet into the Artic, that's where they have the majority of their nukes pointed at us.
#7
#5^ The formidable, ubiquitous bull ant. They sting me about once a day in my bush regeneration work- hurts l badly for about 1 minute, then diminishes. But one friend down the hill is badly allergic and in real trouble if bitten.
May I give a plug to a product called Stingose? Anyone out in the wild should have it on hand, very effective in treating stings and bites. Works by breaking down the proteins that are the active ingredient in venoms. It is theorized that one could treat a snakebite with it, though the manufacturer makes no claims about it. Certainly if and when I get a snakebite, I will apply it immediately, nothing to lose, and inform Burgers of the result, assuming I survive.
But I am mainly thinking of fire ant bites, for y’all.
[HotAir] Marco Rubio's speech at the Munich Security Conference was masterful. It demonstrated why so many of us think he is presidential material. Not only can he hold four important jobs at once, including the Viceroy of Greenland, but he can stir the soul when he puts his mind to it.
The central theme of Rubio's speech was that Europe and the United States are tied together by shared heritage and culture, and that the strain in our relations is not rooted in any hostility toward European interests and culture in the Trump administration, but by a determination to save the collective West from cultural decline and extinction.
Even the Europeans welled up a bit from the speech. They gave Rubio a standing ovation, which is hardly the usual thing for any Trump administration official in the heart of the European establishment, and the German Defense Minister put things into context well.
The New York Times' reaction to the speech mirrored that of AOC: Western values suck, and Europe is no longer Western because its population is being replaced by third worlders. AOC said it outright, giving an explicitly Marxist race and class-based analysis, while the Times sanded the sharp corners down a bit.
I'm not kidding. Here is how Jim Tankersley's story on Rubio's pitch regarding a shared culture begins:
There is an Afghan grocery store on the blocks outside the main train station in Munich. Halal food counters are sprinkled amid the cathedral spires and beer halls. Nearly one of every three residents you meet in town is not German.
It’s a decent approximation of what many European cities, and European people, look like today. And a different Europe from the one the Trump administration says it wants to be friends with.
Marco Rubio, the U.S. secretary of state, tried to soothe a year of friction between the United States and its trans-Atlantic allies on Saturday at the Munich Security Conference. His speech there reiterated America’s commitment to Europe but wrapped it in historical and cultural ties that seemingly exclude large sections of the current European population.
“We are part of one civilization: Western civilization,” Mr. Rubio told a crowd of anxious diplomats in Munich. “We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry.”
The United States and Europe are indeed pillars of what historians refer to as Western Civilization, which has roots typically traced to ancient Greece.
Their modern relationship — and the bonds Mr. Rubio said held it together — has been changed by demographic trends, including new arrivals and rising secularization.
It's a remarkable lede, amounting to both a confirmation of and rebuke to Rubio's (and the Trump administration's) point: Europe isn't Western anymore. The Great Replacement is here.
No doubt many of the European technocrats share this point of view, but just as surely many Europeans do not, and a lot of politicians there are "getting" the message, whether they like it or not.
The Times, speaking for those technocrats who are in love with the Great Replacement, crows that Europe is de-Christianizing, and that the Jewish population barely exists there, while Islam is on the rise.
Christianity is declining across much of the continent. In Europe’s three largest economies — Britain, France and Germany — less than half of residents now identify as Christian, according to survey data by Bertelsmann Stiftung, a nonpartisan foundation. The ranks of the religiously unaffiliated are growing, according to data by the Pew Research Center and others.
After a decade-long influx of migrants from the Middle East and elsewhere, the share of Muslims across Europe has ticked up, to about 6 percent in 2020, according to Pew. The Jewish population has declined slightly and remains below 1 percent.
See, Marco?! Europe is rejecting the Judeo-Christian tradition! Yay!
#1
While it will depend on the internal polling late 2026 into early 2027, Vance will probably be the nominee for President with Rubio as VP.
While historical trends aren't as accurate as they used to be, I can't think of a recent election where the candidate coming directly from a Cabinet post won.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[RedState] We all saw this coming.
[HotAir] 
