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An Ethiopian guy once jokingly said "we taught you guys a lesson in 77" to a somali writer and the somali guy jokingly responded with "yah but the lesson was in Russian not amharic". That ends it. Forget about 77, if somalia get it's shyt together tonight and forms it's national army tomorrow and a war were to broke out btwn us and ethiopia the next day, I believe we could take 'em. when it comes to winning wars, they ain't in our league.

I already told you Luis.

Somalia lost the war because it wanted to capture the whole of Ethiopia instead of the Somali region of Ethiopia, they captured most of it and even went as far as Addis Ababa before Ethiopia got support from the Cubans and arms from the Russians.

He says when he captured Mojo after Nazret and closet to Addis Ababa, he returned to Mogadishu to talk to Siad Barre and spoke to another General who was there because Ali Samatar Siad Barre's right hand man was in Northern Somalia (Somaliland) because the troops were being broken there.

Abdullahi Yusuf's troops were not broken and he returned to his place in Ethiopia. Then he was called to Dire Dawa to meet Generals but he does not mention them by name. And they told him to continue to try and take Addis Ababa, he said who will be responsible because there will be many casualties on our side, and they told him that he shouldn't worry about that.

Anyway, he continued but he had to stop and defend because he said that the reason was that there were more Ethiopian forces but they had the same equipment so he stayed and defended. The cuban troops were helping the Ethiopians in the Dire Dawa front and when they freed Dire Dawa, Abdullahi Yusuf's troops had to fall back. And cross into Somalia. He said that without the Cuban troops, they could have taken Addis Ababa but it wasn't a good choice because Ethiopia has a bigger population than Somalia and in the future it'd cause too many problems.

And then Ethiopia won, and he said that the people behind it was the Cubans, without them, the Ethiopians would have lost

Introduction into the book back cover:

Colonel Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed's influence on the military and political landscape of Somalia has been felt for more than half a century of service to his country. He took part in two wars that Somalia engaged with Ethiopia. In the first, in 1964 he won a medal and citation for the bravery and leadership he displayed in the battle field.

In 1977 war, he was in overall command of the Southern sector of the operation. Poor political leadership lay at the core of the defeat of the Somali army in this war. following the defeat and withdrawal from the battle thretre,

Abduallhi Yusuf and other officers tried and failed to stage a coup against the regime. He than tried to topple the regime by armed insurgency. Although Abduallhi Yusuf did not succeed to bring down the government, others who followed his method manged to achieve what he could not. His journey was cut short by the Ethiopian regime who arrested him for six good years without charge or trail, when he stood up for his principle. Both the Ethiopian and Somali regimes were brought down by armed insurgency in 1991 while he was in prison in Addis Ababa

Luis,

I didn't. Please go back in the first page. At least 4 people mentioned the Ogaden issue before I did. I only joined in

Let's go back to your original topic.

Siad realizes that Somalia has no almost no chance of halting the Ethiopian offensive.