^^ aayar yaa Brown; i didnt read the thread. It was just the uncontroled raw sentiment of mine that did it, i suppose! Waan hoydey waa inoo caawa, yaa Brown.

^^Chew on these verses yaa Baashi, from the Master of poetry himself: Tabaalaha adduun baa ka badan, timaha xaadeede Toogada dhibatee la qabo, tarabka weeyaane Ragba towsta waa kula qabaa, taaha urugeede Turgi xoogle adigoo ah bay, tahartu heedhaaye Tayrshuhu mar buu reydabaa, taaggabtuu yahaye Maruun baa tijaalkii lugtii, turunturrootaaye Taysuhu mar buu kaa guraa, teelka canuunye Tuurimada geel ah mar baad, tuludna weydaaye Maruun baa tirsaaskii hunguri, tigin ku rooraaye Lishaanka toogta ah mar baad, tumul la weydaaye Tuuryadu mar bay kaa leexataa, taakaleel tahaye Maruun baa tumaatiga warmuhu, turuqa seegaane Courts were a blink of hope. A combination of lack of skill from their part, and the strong desire of the forces of shar to keep Somalia under the feet of its foe whose utter resolve I have come to appreciate now contributed its demise! No matter. One can’t complete a house if others busy themselves thwarting its build! As to the lackeys who are trying to fill the void, their prospect of success remains slim!

I welcome Ethiopia's withdrawal. In fact i demand Ethiopia's withdrawal, i want them out and soon at that!

Baashi, What you fear is inevitable as long Ethiopia is on Somali soil yaa Baashi! Instead of calling for its withdrawal, the world will understand why Ethiopia is there. With TFG as its diplomatic cover, and pursue of the Courts remnants as a pretext for its military activities, it’s hard to imagine Ethiopia withdrawing any time soon. Short of another Somali reconciliation, the future of Somalia looks bleak. Edit-do you not think TFG lacks legitimacy?

^^One Keyboard Waranle is out alla mubaarazah style! Ready for the call, yaa Liqe? Mogadishu pacified. Yes, but what significance brother Liqaye attributed to that historic achievement? A mere apostrophe, did he not yaa Baashe? Of course Liqaye’s write up doesn’t constitute in its entirety a worthless rant, but my sweeping objections were inline, justly, with the tone of his post. When one attempts, regardless of his/her political persuasion, to paint an entire entity with one stroke, and negatively, seldom would one obliged to take him seriously. Hence my summary dismissal of Liqaye’s post! ICU committed itself untimely and unnecessary war. Untimely, yes. But was it avoidable all together, yaa Baashi? That I personally hoped a different approach before the conflict broke out is a matter of record in these boards. But when the war started and defeat seemed inevitable, I have insisted, as you know, on human dignity and thusly my call to fight on till death or victory. The alternative was defeat with humiliation; such was, in my mind, the stark choices Courts leadership faced. ICU Lost the war. No question about it. But that’s hardly a shortcoming. Wars are won and lost! ICU handed back the weapons to clans. True. And it was a good strategy to make difficult for the invading force to govern in peace. The options were to destroy Courts heavy weaponry. Time was not on their side for that to have happened, or leave it for the Ethiopia’s taking—it could still take it, but it requires additional effort as the weapons are in the hands of distrustful clans. What would you have Courts do in the above circumstances, yaa Baashi? Give their weapon to Yeey and Geedi or to Ethiopia? ICU saved Mogadishu from the urban warfare. True. And they must be commended for it. ICU didn't extend the same courtesy to Jilib and Kismayo. Not true. War was not fought in both cities. If you are talking about the region it self, it was chosen for its terrain. It’s receptive for insurgency activities I was told. At any rate, the charge that Courts spared Mogadishu from the knife and purposely sacrificed Kismayo is unfounded. It’s misinformation yaa Baashi! Good to see you back...Santaaro is back too from Nairobi.

Somalis Adapt Warily, Pragmatically to New Order in Capital Fear of Warlords Returns After Rout Of Islamic Forces By Stephanie McCrummen Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, January 5, 2007; Page A10 MOGADISHU, Somalia, Jan. 4 -- Among the first things Mohamed Abtidon did when the Islamic Courts movement came to town in June was to buy a fancy cellphone, a slim $360 Motorola. Streets once ruled by thieving, bribing warlords finally felt safe, he said, and he walked around chatting with abandon. Since the Islamic movement was swept from power last week, men draped with AK-47s have appeared once again along the sandy lanes in his neighborhood, and with them a feeling of menace, to which Abtidon has adapted almost instinctively. He put the fancy phone away and is now using an old battered one that he keeps shoved deep in his pocket. "I switched back to the one I used when the warlords were here," he said. "And I put it on vibrate, because I don't want to let them know I have a phone." Mogadishu is a consummately unpredictable city, a place where trust in the future is gauged by the ups and downs of the local gun market. In the past 15 years, it has experienced the fall of a dictator, brutal civil war, the rise of a coalition of warlords and the warlords' overthrow by the Islamic Courts movement. Last week, all was undone again when the Islamic fighters were run out by Ethiopian troops backing a fragile, secular government that is now racing to establish itself before the old thuggish militias return. For ordinary Somalis caught in the flux, day-to-day life has been driven less by ideological allegiance than sheer pragmatism and constant recalibrations. "However things are going, we just adapt to it," said Mohamed Dere, who works for a telecommunications company in the city and is also an artist. "The reality is we need peace only, however we get it. With the Islamic Courts, the practical side was they gave us peace, so that was the wager." Like many Somalis, he protected himself with a gun when the warlords were in power, stowed it away when the Islamic Courts took over and brought it out again when the new government pushed the Islamic side out. And like many, he was uncomfortable with the social restrictions the Islamic leaders imposed. For example, they had frowned upon, though did not police, secular music and dancing. But Dere said he feels far more oppressed at the moment by insecurity. "We are hostages right now," he said. "We have no freedom." In one way, people here said, Mogadishu was liberated by the Islamic Courts movement, which managed to rid the city of the militias and roadblocks that had functioned like a hundred Berlin Walls. Movement was so restricted that some residents had not seen friends and relatives in years, and children living only minutes from the crashing Indian Ocean had never laid eyes on the turquoise water. So when the Islamic movement took power in June, Bile Dirie, 36, packed up his family in a Land Cruiser on a few glorious Fridays, drove the entire length of the city's coast and swam in the ocean. He moved out of his apartment in the Baraka neighborhood of Mogadishu, the only place he had felt safe under the warlords' rule, and followed his fancy to a more expansive area called Medina, where he got a bigger house for less money. When the Courts movement was pushed out last week, however, he feared the return of the warlords' militias and went back to his old neighborhood, an area that appears to have been disassembled and reassembled dozens of times, with its stick-and-tarp markets and loosely hinged doors, spirals of barbed wire and tangled nests of phone lines. Only herds of goats seem to roam Mogadishu freely these days, wandering the sandy streets past trees and rusted hulls of tanks. "I don't drive around now," Dirie said, sitting in his office. "The militias are still shy, but that's fading." read on

^^The Sage--Liqaye that is--has labored terribly, as it now seems, but unfortunately produced what amounts to a mouse! He conveniently forgot Courts political and social realities did extend across a spectrum and one cant squeeze it in a extremely narrow scale without committing intellectual dishonest!

Liqaye- When something is not black, it need not necessarily be white. It could be of many different shades of grey.---that should suffice to refute your weak argumentation style!

^^

^^

^^Adeer i was the only one (who responded to your thread) who did not find it funny. I have niether hurried nor was there a shame of mine to hide! If your overriding motivation is to lampoon however, with all means do contnue! I must admit though that i held your target a little higher than you aimed ! Too bad, i say. ps ThePoint, the fact that you dont see it as a national tragedy is itself a tragedy!

^^The why is complex but I hazard to simplify it for you, ThePoint, without Ethiopia there is no TFG! Hence every thing or great deal of it hinges what Ethiopia does, and not what you dream TFG would do. Since Ethiopia had been, for ages, and still remains to be our archenemy, it strikes to me as an extreme fantasy that it would help its enemy stand on its feet and govern smoothly its Somali subjects. The reason Ethiopia is in Somalia has a zilch to do with enabling old man’s entity to govern and everything to do with preserving Ethiopia’s regional interest in Somalia. One of Ethiopia's cheif nterest in the region, yaa ThePoint, is to keep Somalia’s status quo: weak and divided! Now unless you have a particular revelation to share with us, Ethiopia’s invasion in Somalia is to keep the TFG the way it’s as it serves a perfect diplomatic cover (we are invited by a sovereign government) and that sadly aligns well with Tigre’s regional agenda toward Somalia! Ethiopia’s invasion, it goes without saying, represents for some as a notional tragedy and for others, it’s the beginning of the Somali republic they wished to have. That’s why tfg equals Ethiopia!

Why ? People who support the warlords in Mogadishu and Baydhabo find very easy to defend that point! I thought you hold the intellectual string of the whole thing! Maa caleesh! *I am disappointed in you yaa ThePoint*

^^I accept your distinguished words! And unlike our good Captain I suspect that you also know hardly men like me would cease from struggling! Success as it were is the flipside of defeat, yaa ThePoint! What say you about Somalia’s current tragedy or do you see one adeer? Would you share with us your raw sentiment toward Ethiopia’s invasion? And whom do you think (to bring that Captain back) NGONGE’s lampoon is on?

^^More like give Ethiopia a chance to rule! Go right ahead and defend that point yaa ThePoint!

Ah! The scent of your ironic undercurrent is irresistible!

Originally posted by ThePoint: ..... But many on this board are defending this action. Strange. ^^Your criticism of Courts actions is noted. But what are you defending now as you seem to be driving a point here yaa ThePoint? Ethiopia's (& America's) assault against Courts? TFG's invitation of Ethiopia? Current Ethiopian occupation?

^^The lampoon is on you and you chose to argue from the fringes of the past events. Aren’t you, yaa Captain, at your wit’s end?

^^^I thought I’ve absorbed the ICU defeat quite well (not quite a defeat yet---a depressing setback, I call it) but as Ayoub diagnosed it the numbness of it still lingers, I suppose.

^^That line was executed in an ingenious manner, I agree. But I did not find it funny yaa Ayoub!

Though it’s not as quite a harsh sketch as it could be, still the target of your satirical writing is noted yaa NGONGE! Unlike how brother Lancer loosely interpreted it, it’s not the persona of said gentlemen, I reckon, that you target with your mild ridicule! Their attitudes and ideas of achieving political objectives are. Assuming that you are angry (disappointed) with the events that has transpired recently (I sense an element of anger in your peace), what do you profess this kind of parody would change? I refuse to accept that you’ve only done it for humor sake! Of course I could be wrong. Indulge us a bit deeper into how this sentiment of yours shames its target (in SOL, the target could be those men’s supporters) into reform, yaa NGONGE? PS: I didn’t find the comedy that most people seem to have enjoyed!

^^^You didnt get yaa Duke! Ethiopia needs not accupy somalia. It just needs to create new generation of somali leaders who behave the same way the old man behaved: relay on Ethiopia to rule Somalia. It will create a Pland and Sland like client state that appriciate and fear its fire power and meekly cooperate with its regional plans. Now tell me if that's a difficult project to undertake yaa Duke?

^^Where does Barre stand on this national tragedy? Since he finnaly made back to Kismayo and talked to his supporters will he see the light or will he get on with Ethiopias program and be inline with wiilka agoonka ah ee saaka Xamar ka hadlay? More importantly where do you stand today yaa Horn? Are you happy for the icu's temparary setbacks and cheering for Ethiopias historic milestone? ....Couldnt resist yaa horn...just for the record.

Jahilnimo mus go indeed, adeer! Whatever mistakes icu commited were negligible in my eyes given thier genuineness in resurrecting somalia from its near death. We can go back in time and debate about the past but today you have individuals who brought amxaaro to crush thier own people. You need to speak to that yaa Khalaf! Midda kale there is a differnce between liberating your people and ruling and governing them. the function of true muslims in somalia today is the first and not the latter yaa Khalaf!

^^Agreed! Kuweena wax ka liita malaha yaa Jimcaale!