Even with all of that sentiment and Ethiopia having upheaval, you're still a country only 18 years removed from independence with an already volatile environment. At the end of the day the war bankrupt the country and had Somalia into the structural adjustment mumbo jumbo of the IMF with all of the debt incurred.These kids really entertain me. It's like some old American right now talking about why Vietnam should not have happened. Clealy Vietnam should not have happened but it wasn't a single event attributable to Nixon or any one American president. It was a long process that that affected three American presidents and Administrations.
In the same way it was not for Siad to go for or not to go for the Ogaden War. From the time of colonialism, to liberation, to our flag...irredentist pan-Somalism was the wish of the Somali people. Siad was only a facilitator not the originator of the Ogaden, it wasn't not his choice to go in or out. He was simple facilitating when and when not to go in and a better opportunity could not have come then the overthrow of Haile Salassie when the Ethiopian state was engulfed into anarchy. Was he to know the whole soviet world would come and defend Ethiopia surprising even the Americans?
Really, these kids should do less talking and more learning.
the Ogaden War was just the beginning of Siad Barre's downfall (the country advanced in the first 8-9 years leading till the war). General SNM has a point, the country was very young and war just messes everything up and to this day that war turned Somalia into a military land awashed with guns (the first rebel groups sprawling up shortly thereafter).
That war crippled Somalia and laid the foundations for the worse things to come in the following decade.
