Michel Aoun: A psychotic Lust For The Presidency
By: Elias Bejjani
LCCC Chairman

December 22/06

The Maronite Patriarch, Mar Nasrallah Sfeir -(AsiaNews) – on December 18/06: "It is time to put a stop to the opposition sit-in that has blocked the centre of Beirut since 1 December, because it is harming the economy. “Unchecked” gatherings taking place throughout the sit-in should also be stopped because “they could endanger the family”.

General Lahoud, Lebanon's Syrian-appointed President on December 18/06 - Daily Star: "I agree Aoun should become the next president."

In the above two statements, both His Beatitude the Maronite Patriarch and the Lebanese Maronite President are addressing General Michel Aoun's grandiose
delusions and lust for power, but from different perspectives and contradicting aims. While the Patriarch is calling on him to put an end to his role as a mere destructive and chameleon cover for the Iranian-Syrian sit-ins spearheaded by Hezbollah, Lahoud, who is himself a Syrian cover and a subservient tool for the Iranian coup against the legitimate institutions, is playing on Aoun's grandiose delusion in a bid to keep him stranded from his own Patriarch and Christian community.

The grace of heaven is rarely bestowed upon oppressed and suffering people whose existence and identity are threatened, with honest and capable leadership to
guide their steps wisely and safely towards the shores of deliverance. Benevolent leaders that can secure for their people the means of freedom, respect, recognition, dignified existence, and independence. The Lebanese Christian community in particular, and Lebanon's eighteen other officially recognized communities in general, have always pleaded to Almighty God to grant them such leaders who are capable and willing to lead with knowledge, faith, compassion, conscience, transparency and wisdom.

In Lebanon's modern history, several such gifted leaders emerged, among whom the late Dr. Charles Malek (Lebanon Foreign Minister in the later fifties and one
of the main authors of the UN Charter and Human Rights Covenant), Fouad Efrem Boustani (writer, historian & educator), Bashir Gemayel, (gifted Christian leader who was assassinated a few weeks after he was being elected President in 1982), and Michel Aoun (Lebanon's Army Commander and Prime Minister between 1988-1990, and currently Member of Parliament and leader of the Free Patriotic Movement party). But while Malek and Boustani ended their intellectual and ideological mission before departing from this mortal life because of old age, death kidnapped Bashir Gemayel early in his life at the age of 34 and at the peak of his capabilities depriving the Lebanese people of his superb leadership potentials. Meanwhile, Bashir's vision for a free, united, democratic, and peaceful Lebanon (known as The Dream) never died and remained alive in the conscience of all free and sovereign Lebanese people.

As to Michel Aoun, he successfully carried the flame of Bashir, from the heart of the military institution, as Army commander and head of a transitional military
government between 1988-1990 in the darkest and most difficult moments. He carried high the thought of Malek and Boustani for 18 long years of bitter struggle. All the sovereignty partisans and the “Bashirists” (the supporters of Bashir's national doctrine) gathered around Aoun, attracted by his steady and firm stances, his courage in witnessing for the truth, self-respect, patriotic platforms, transparency, honesty, audacity, bravery, and most importantly for raising high the flags of freedom, sovereignty and independence.

However, and after the liberation of Lebanon from the Syrian occupation in 2005, and upon his glorious and victorious return from exile (he was living in forced
exile in France since 1991), Michel Aoun shockingly exhibited a “double personality” syndrome coupled with a blatant “selective memory loss”. This psychiatric
disorder (Double Personality) that Aoun has been lately acutely suffering from is well known to professionals in the Mental Heath field. Aoun has been exhibiting all its signs and symptoms.

The man has turned 180 degrees from his political and ethical past record, he even with a numbed conscience buried his own name. He reneged on his 18 years of
honorable patriotic record and betrayed with cold blood all his promises and covenants. Viciously and venomously, Aoun played demagogically on the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious Lebanese construct. With all the dirty tactics and evil manipulative destructive strategies, he hit hard and maliciously on peoples' emotions, fears, denominational affiliations, and on the very delicate Lebanese demographic fabric. Suddenly, with a drugged and stony conscience, and a calcified heart, he joined Hezbollah, the Iranian army in Lebanon and became not only an ally for this fanatic terrorist group, but also a mouthpiece for the two Axis of Evil countries, Syria and Iran. He adopted the role of a dirty cover for the Syrian-Iranian military onslaught to execute a coup through Hezbollah and take over the country.

In this realm, he started to deliver fiery, below-the-belt, instigative and threatening speeches in which he has been advocating publicly to attack and storm the headquarters of the Lebanese Prime Minister, topple the legitimate and elected Saniora government by force, and form a second government. With a dead
conscience, he is executing Hezbollah's scheme in killing the country's economy, destabilizing the national peace and paralyze all governing and legislative institutions.

He shamelessly defied the Maronite Patriarch's instructions and recommendations calling for putting an end to the sit-ins. He stood against the will and aspiration of the majority of the Lebanese Christian community that strongly opposes Hezbollah's religious Iranian doctrine and fears its attempts to tumble the government by force in a bid to abort the implementation of UN resolutions calling for its disarmament, and to block a UN international tribunal legislation aiming to try the killers of late PM Hariri and all the perpetrators who killed or tried to kill fifteen MPs, journalists and media men and women, all of whom were anti-Syria.

After finding internally, regionally and internationally that his chances for being elected president are a big zero, the man decided to play the role of Samson and to bring the temple down on himself and the country. He did not only become neurotically afflicted with double personality disorder, but he also became preoccupied with a psychotic grandiose delusion revolving around the presidency post and his greed and lust for power.

In his sickening and nauseating endeavor to be the next Lebanese president, Aoun has negated every word that he had uttered during the past eighteen years. In
one of his published editorials before his return from exile he wrote: "Lebanon will be again an independent, sovereign and free country without any Syrian tutelage
and influence. All those serving Syrian interests are puppets and will not have any future saying in the country's liberation. All of them should know that those who side with Syria are in fact doing so against nature and no matter what they do, they ultimately will be defeated". This same man is now allied with all the parties, politicians and groups that he himself used to tag as Syrian subservients and agents among which are the Baath, the Syrian National Socialist, the Nasserists, Hezbollah, the Communists, and the Workers parties. He is also allied with his worst previous enemy, the Syrian handpicked current President of the Republic, General Lahoud, in addition to an assortment of fundamentalists and collaborators from feudal, and financial-fundamentalist Mafias.

Before shifting sides and forging a secret deal with the Baathist Syrian regime and its puppets in Lebanon, Michel Aoun had built his popularity for the last 18 years, and earned his credibility, reputation, and patriotic record by fighting the political forces that are his current terrorists and pro-Syrian allies, especially Hezbollah and the Syrian puppet president, General Emile Lahoud. Aoun had hit hard on Syria and its Lebanese puppet politicians and parties for their corrupt practices, heresy, fundamentalism, and subservience to Syrian-Iranian schemes. He has written hundreds of editorials, given tens of lectures and conducted dozens of interviews, cautioning in all of them against Syria's evil intents to uproot Lebanon's distinctive identity and civilization, and empty, marginalize and destroy its institutions, meddle in its ethnic and religious demographic composition, terrorize, persecute, starve, and force its people into exodus, erase its history, oppress freedoms, abort democracy, and abuse human rights..

The lust to power has blinded Aoun's eyes, mind, conscience and discretion. He can only see the ragged seat of the presidency, polluted with the last two  Syrian-picked Presidents Hrawi and Lahoud. The worst ever Presidents in Lebanon's remote and contemporary history. He only hears the voices of those men playing
for him day and night the mantra of the presidency. He is only entertained by, and relaxes over, the songs glorifying him as “The Great Leader”, and the “Savior”.

His nerves are tense, and he has become detached from the tangible reality. He started behaving as if he actually is the inspired and obeyed leader, becoming
through his media appearances a moral catastrophe, all ending with shameful military terms, empty verbal threats, and disgusting boastful postures. His nervous, emotional and adversarial style exhibited boldly in all his public appearances became so evident even to the blind. He now needs one of his mouthpieces to constantly “clarify, justify and verify" after every announcement, message or speech.

Aoun's Syrianized-Iranianized Syndrome came to the surface with his “Memorandum of Understanding” with Hezbollah, the fundamentalist group with the highest
degree of hostility to Lebanon the identity, the being, the freedoms, the coexistence, and the rights. His memorandum realistically and practically is worthless from the national doctrine perspective and is not worth the ink that was used to write it. It gave Hezbollah a free Christian “coverage” to launch its “Godly” July war and now to go ahead with its coup to topple the Saniora legitimate government and rule the whole country. Very few Lebanese, even in their dreams, had imagined to see Aoun standing next to Sheik Naim Kassem, Hezbollah's Deputy Secretary General at a Beirut downtown rally on Ryad Al-Solh Square while roaring and chanting "Death to America,  death to Israel" (Sunday December 6/06)

Aoun, and in another attempt to escape forward, he signed another "Memorandum of Understanding. This time with the Communist party. One wonders how low his national priorities have fallen. Aoun is almost in a position of enmity with all the five pillars of the Lebanese Christian community (The Maronite Patriarch, The
Maronite Bishops, The Christian congregations, The Christian Schools and Universities and the Christian NGO's/Parties). He has failed to reconcile with his own people. It is well known that he who is unable to reconcile with himself, his family and surroundings, is unable to reconcile with other people. As long as Aoun is at odds with his own Christian society, he won’t reap any benefit from these memorandums that could get him elected president or regain the confidence and trust of the Christian intellectuals. His defiance has reached a stage where is now locking horns even with the Maronite Patriarch. Although he continuously boasts that he represents the vast majority of the Lebanese Christians, the question is: aren’t the Christian parties who are harshly criticized by Aoun, worthier than his memorandums of understanding?

As I wondered in my previous editorial, how could Aoun remain quiet regarding the threat by the Hezbollah Shiite cabinet Minister Trad Hamadeh that his “Godly”
party will seek control of the presidency if the majority remains against the national unity government and the conditions of Nasrallah. (According to the Lebanese constitution, the Presidency is designated to the Christians, the Prime Ministership to the Sunnis, and the Speakership of Parliament to the Shiites). Today, I wonder again, why is it that Aoun, the self-proclaimed protector of the Lebanese Christians, never bothered to answer, even for the sake of form, on the statements of his ally, the former pro-Syrian Minister Sleiman Frangieh, who unashamedly attacked in an unprecedented manner, the Maronite Patriarch Sfeir, through the Hezbollah Manar TV station?

I also ask, what is left of Aoun's credibility and sincerity and those of his Parliamentary block when clarifications, verifications and corrections of statements have became a requirement after each one of Aoun's pronouncements? What good is derived from their lip-service to the latest Maronite Bishops declaration of convictions, while Aoun and his parliamentary block remain a Trojan horse providing Christian cover and décor to Hezbollah’s Syria-Iran revolution/coup
d’etat, against the Lebanese state right from the Beirut Downtown Ryad Solh square? These deceiving positions insult the intelligence of our people. These
are astonishing contradictions to all Aoun's record and platforms for all through 18 years.

I, with my psychiatric professional background, wonder what has actually led Aoun to be afflicted with this Acute Double Personality Disorder? From 1988 till
January of this year, Aoun had promised emancipation after liberation of the country. Now and after the country was liberated from the Syrian occupation, Aoun
assumed with a numbed conscience the Trojan role, the witness to falsehood, the chameleon cover to kidnap Lebanon underneath the Hezbollah yellow flags, and
dragging it to the deserts and under Hezbollah's tents from the Stone Age. Above all, through his 180 degrees turn, Aoun has been marketing Hezbollah’s Iranian plan and weapons, which according to its members of parliament, shall remain, remain, and remain as long as there is a Bible and a Quran! While Hezbollah makes
no secrets of its goals for the war and every Lebanese is aware of this destructive reality, Aoun, and despite all these facts regarding Hezbollah's weapons and hunger for power, deludes himself thinking that people are sheep, cannot recognize where Hezbollah is dragging the country to, and that he can herd his supporters anywhere he pleases without any objection.

One wonders what is the common denominator, in ideas, culture, and practices between Aoun and the master of the “Holy Resistance” and his “God party” Sheik Hassan Nasrallah? Truly nothing is common except that Aoun is driven by his desire to become Lebanon's next president. His vision has become a tunnel one, and he desperately is trying through his alliance with Hezbollah to impose a new Lebanese internal equation, that quenched his desires for the presidential post.
He is playing this last resort card, after it was explained to him clearly that his candidacy has been rejected by the US, France, the European and Arab countries, other Lebanese Christian parties, the Maronite Patriarch, and the March 14 parliamentary majority group in Parliament.

Aoun has himself pointed this Syrian tactic in an editorial entitled “The Continuation of Blackmail" (5/19/2001). He wrote: “The bitter truth that we sense today is the transformation of the resistance (Hezbollah) into a political instrument used by Damascus in creating internal Lebanese equations to solidify its policies in Lebanon and support its regime back in Syria. Syria’s scare tactics are geared to serve these goals. This is apparent through their grandiose theoretic propositions and the lowering of economic production until annihilation".

Aoun's actual anti-Hezbollah stances in regards to its resistance, arms, the Syrian-Iranian fabricated lie of Shebaa Farms, the so-called liberation of the South
Lebanon allegations etc. are all well documented in dozens of articles, speeches, and communiqués. What follows are verbatim samples that shows how Aoun has
backed off on all his platforms, promises and national convictions, and all for his presidency obsession.

Aoun at the US Congress September 18, 2003.
“After the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, we realize that the Syrian regime will leave behind scores of its terror and destruction instruments, as well as its intelligence operatives. It is therefore mandatory, that the withdrawal is simultaneously executed along with the full disarmament of the armed elements. Only the Lebanese legal armed forces can provide the security to the Lebanese citizens.”

Aoun in an editorial on July 14/2002 entitled "Syria: Lebanon's soft flank":
"Syria has resisted the Israeli withdrawal (from South Lebanon, prior to its unilateral withdrawal in May 2000), and when it did not succeed in preventing its
occurrence, it aborted through pressuring Lebanon the implementation of UN Resolution 426 (which stipulates the obligations of both Lebanon and Israel once UN
Resolution 425 is implemented). Syria had invented the Shebaa Farms case in a bid to keep Lebanon a soft flank for Israel and a protective zone for itself.".
In same context of negating all Hezbollah's and Syria's sincerity, trust and credibility, Aoun in another editorial dated November 11/2000, wrote: "The Syrian regime has found its desire and goal in the Southern resistance (Hezbollah in South Lebanon), and  accordingly alleged its protection in its liberation mission".

Aoun on June 23, 2000. in an editorial titled “The return to Clam”
“ In this occasion, we advise those who want to keep arms, to withdraw it from all hands and store it. For resistance to occupation has ceased after it has ended
. There is no hope of extending it (the resistance) beyond the borders. From now on, these weapons will only harm those who carry them. And a liberation
remain meaningless unless it is transformed to an absolute national sovereignty.”

Aoun on December 10, 2000.
“In all cases, those (Lebanese) who own cannons (possess arms in Lebanon) are all on one side facing all those others who are not armed. The cannons are
all in the possession of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Government and the Syrians. All of them are on one side in the same line facing the rest of the unarmed
people. Meanwhile the people are stubborn and persistent in claiming their rights. Or is it that we are back to the concept of force where we have no
choice but to accept what Syrian imposed or be exposed to extinction."

Aoun on December 31/1999:
"The squad composed of the US, Syria, Israel, the Lebanese Government and the resistance (Hezbollah), is playing an international-regional show that has
nothing to do with the reality of the Lebanese people except what disastrous results it dictated. Meanwhile the Lebanese regime does not represent Lebanon and it
is part of the show that started and had emerged ten years ago. In the negotiations, it (the Lebanese Government) represents the doorkeepers' role. It gets
in and out according to signals. This role will not change by the change of the negotiating delegation members because this role is assigned to them and of
their own making."

Aoun on September 17/1999 in an editorial entitled "The Israeli withdrawal":
"In case the resistance (Hezbollah) continues (after an Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon), in the international point of view, Israel will be safe from
being denounced when using its deterrent destructive power in respond to the resistance even if it exceeds the limits of the appropriate response."

Aoun on August 4/2000:
"When the national education gets low in the society, and when the citizen loses his capability to differentiate between the nation's permanent convictions and the political unstable and moveable matters, he is then dragged to stances that contradict what he wants to express, he is used to fix what he wants to change and to change what he wants to fix although playing with words and endorsing stances in contrary to its truth."

The alliance between Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement and Hezbollah's General Secretary Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah is so odd, bizarre and does not by any means
bridge the two individuals' publicly declared views about each other, e.g.:

Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah on November 11/1989 (Annahar Newspaper)
"Palestine belongs to the whole nation "Al Umma", and not to a bunch of leaders who got exhausted, old and sold themselves to the devil. We emphasize that there
is no means except to continue the struggle "Al Jihad", till total liberation of our holy country". "In the midst of the events in Lebanon emerges a problem whose name is the "Taef Accord", and a problem whose name is Michel Aoun. It is not true that he who rejects the Taef Accord is with Michel Aoun. The Taef Accord is a problem because it dedicates the denominational system without reforms, but an increase in the number of the MPs. The cabinet was given power while the President remains the Army Higher Chief Commander. Our problem in Lebanon is the denominational system through which deprivation remains. The alternative as the leader of the Iranian Islamic Republic Ayatollah Al Khomeini has said, the system should fall and the people decide on the course of the new system. What we hope is that the people and public in Lebanon will choose without pressure the system they want and we are with the people in deciding their our fate. As for that Aoun, he is a problem because he is an Israeli destructive and confrontational condition. He does not see except his individual interests and those of his denomination. He is the racist Maronite course in Eastern Beirut (the Capital's Christian sector)." Nasrallah stressed in his speech that the alternative to the Taef
resolutions is the resistance.

Aoun in an editorial dated May 27, 2000 entitled “When will the Liberation be”
In the aftermath of the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon Aoun described Hezbollah as an organization that cuts open bellies and slaughters people's necks while in their own beds. This statement was a response to a public threat uttered by Hezbollah's General Secretary Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah who, a few days before the Israeli withdrawal, warned the Lebanese Southern citizens through all media channles that that Nasrallah's organization, Hezbollah Party, will get to their bedrooms to slaughter their necks and cut open their bellies.
Aoun wrote in his editorial: “What are the Lebanese State (Lahoud puppet regime) and its deceitful ruling class proud of after the Israeli withdrawal, now that
thousands of innocent Lebanese citizens have fled to Israel? Why did the women flee scared with their children to the Israeli camps? Isn’t this the result  of Nasrallah’s threats to slaughter people in their beds, under the watching eyes and ears of a State running after this rhetoric because of its failure to perform its duties, and then adopt this rhetoric by its silence, therefore abandoning all its security and judicial responsibilities. And how could a “President” (General Lahoud) give assurances to his people to return to their land, when he has no sovereignty over it and is characterized by his constant absence from executing his responsibilities. And until the true celebration of liberation arrives, we refuse to participate in the “drugging” celebrations, and we leave its pleasure peak to the drug addicts to enjoy.”

For Heaven's sake, how could these two men trust one another and forge an alliance with each other? There is no logic, common sense or rationale in such a bizarre alliance. But, in the end it is so sad and so disappointing to watch a great leader like General Aoun committing political suicide through forging an alliance with the Axis of Evil via its Iranian army in Lebanon, Hezbollah. The question remains: Is the man sane? Many of those who knew him so close reply with a big NO and continue to bitterly say the man is not himself.

Note: To read the six previous editorials of this series click here http://www.10452lccc.com/eliasbejjanienglish06.htm
N.B: All above quotes were translated by the writer from the original Arabic sources.‎

*Elias Bejjani
Chairman for the Canadian Lebanese Coordinating Council (LCCC)
Human Rights activist, journalist & political commentator.
Spokesman for the Canadian Lebanese Human Rights Federation (CLHRF)
E.Mail phoenicia@hotmail.com
LCCC Web Site http://www.10452lccc.com
CLHRF Website http://www.clhrf.com