LF Sickness Syndrome ...

[Tayyar Keserwen]

Dry Ice expects us not to reply to anyone attacking us, as this behavior is a reply to a sick behavior, which in itself is sick too.

We have to become virtual Ghandis too it seems.

[Dry Ice]

Originally Posted by Tayyar Keserwen

Dry Ice expects us not to reply to anyone attacking us

Nope, I expect my fellow countrymen to reply properly and without getting into vulgarity and the like.

Originally Posted by Tayyar Keserwen

as this behavior is a reply to a sick behavior, which in itself is sick too.

We have to become virtual Ghandis too it seems.

That's a character-assassination type of reply.

[ecce homo]

Is there a relation between the psychological health state of a party leader and his followers?

In Lebanon, rivals unconvinced by warlord's apology

Samir Geagea, a fearsome Christian militia leader during Lebanon's civil war, says he had a change of heart after studying mysticism and religion in prison.

By Borzou Daragahi
December 15, 2008

In Lebanon, rivals unconvinced by warlord's apology - Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Maarab, Lebanon -- When the warlord finally tried to repent, no one would accept his apology.

They'd already formed their opinion of Samir Geagea, once the leader of a fearsome Christian militia. His supporters loved him regardless of what he did. And his rivals and enemies would never see him as anything but a caricature of the excesses, brutality and impunity of Lebanon's civil war. But there are twists to Geagea's tale. Unlike other commanders during the civil war, Geagea (pronounced zsa-zsa) paid a price afterward, locked in a windowless prison cell beneath the Defense Ministry building for 11 years. During that time, he said, he studied literature, mysticism and religion, finding spirituality and a longing for salvation.

In September, he told thousands of supporters gathered in the coastal city of Jounieh that he regretted some of his actions during the conflict and asked for God's forgiveness.

"If you don't bury the old ghosts, they'll keep bothering people," the lanky, balding 56-year-old said during an interview at his party's mountaintop headquarters here in Maarab, about 15 miles northeast of Beirut. "All in all, we had to do this immediately after the war. Unfortunately, after the war, there was no peace."

The war, which lasted from 1975 to 1990, set the standard for a new kind of lawless, media-saturated civil conflict now common in desperate corners of the world. It left an estimated 100,000 people dead and nearly a million displaced. Palestinians, Shiites, Sunnis, Druze, Christians and their foreign backers were pitted against one another, and sometimes against their own kind.

Geagea's story illustrates the complexity of coming to terms with that dark past.

He was a year away from completing medical school at the American University of Beirut when he was sucked into the conflict's vortex as a member of a right-wing Christian militia eventually called the Lebanese Forces. He gained a reputation for no-holds-barred killing, including violence against rival Christians.

In 1990, Syrian troops occupied the country, ending a conflict already petering out. There would be no truth commission to examine who did what during the conflict.

All parties agreed to sweep the war's dirty business under the rug. The government offered amnesty to all fighters except those accused of killing foreign diplomats, high-ranking officials and religious leaders.

Geagea immediately alienated other Christian leaders and Syrian-backed authorities, who charged him with bombing a church and assassinating several officials during the war. After a trial that independent observers said was seriously flawed, he was thrown into prison in 1994, in the third basement level, with "no fresh air, no sun, no winter, no summer . . . nothing," he said.

For 11 years, he was allowed to see only his wife and some relatives, barred from talking politics with anyone or even reading newspapers.

But he was allowed to read books. He devoured philosophy, psychology and religion, twice rereading the Koran and devouring translated works of mystic theologians.

"Always I have a mystic tension, a mystic inclination, because I'm acquainted with the Christian mystics," he said. "I went deep into the Hindu philosophy."

Alone in his cell, he began what he called a process of "auto-psychoanalysis" to examine his actions.

"It's not as easy as it seems," Geagea said. "This needs fasting all the time. It needs concentration. It needs meditation. Of course, it needs silence, and I had the silence because I was solitary."

He said he tried to determine what he did right during the war, such as making a tactical retreat that cost positions but saved civilian lives, and what he did wrong, which he declined to specify. "I would leave that to history," he said.

In 2005, Syrian forces withdrew from the country and Geagea was pardoned by the parliament. Many hailed the new era, but old political demons emerged: Sunni radicalism, Christian chauvinism, Shiite grievances, Palestinian desperation -- all the ingredients that had ignited the civil war.

Three months ago, Geagea stood before thousands of supporters in Jounieh and made an unprecedented speech. "I fully apologize for all the mistakes that we committed when we were carrying out our national duties during past civil war years," he said. "I ask God to forgive, and so I ask the people whom we hurt in the past."

His supporters hailed him as Lebanon's Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid leader who was imprisoned for 27 years in South Africa and went on to became president and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. But others don't buy it.

Although many of his Christian and Muslim rivals acknowledge the speech as important, they say he continues to practice divisive politics, emphasizing Christian grievances and suffering, that could drag the country back into war. "This is a courageous attitude," one intellectual close to the Shiite Muslim militia Hezbollah said of Geagea's stance. "But his current political ideology depends on fear, and his political outlook is in contradiction to his regret, and will not end the logic of civil war." Others say that he should resign from politics, that even wars have rules and that his behavior during the civil war was so bad that he should be barred from public life.

Of course, no one really knows who did what during the conflict. Stories of horror continue to float and fester. Few care to open old wounds; the war is even excluded from school curricula. But Geagea says he wants the younger generation to know the horrors of war. "They don't know what the war is, what civil war is," he said, bowing his head slightly and drawing closer. "We know. War is the worst thing in this world. You have to try to do anything, but not war."

My own note Mysticism="the belief that direct knowledge of God, spiritual truth, or ultimate reality can be attained through subjective experience (as intuition or insight)" (from the Merriam Webster dictionary)

[Youchka]

Originally Posted by Dry Ice

Nope, I expect my fellow countrymen to reply properly and without getting into vulgarity and the like.



That's a character-assassination type of reply.

Way to go with the patronizing tone.
Let's see, what would your reply to the great Habib? Please bare in mind that he is an MP, not a concierge, and thus one would expect his language to fit his position.
I guess you would be too "big" to reply to him, which FPM does, but let's say he says that Dry Ice is a small idiot who thinks he is very smart but he is actually suffering tremendous psychological problems. I am sure the first time you won;t say anything, you would think this guy is an idiot himself and doesn't know what he is saying, then he says it again, then he says it again on a different TV station, then his team draw a caricature of Dry Ice looking very funny and like someone who indeed has psychological problems, then you start hearing your neighbors reiterating what the great Habib had said, let's see, what would you do by then?

[Red Phoenix]

ppl let's not drift off topic and start flagellating ourselves..

let's go back to ripping fun of our very bright brothers the LFers.

that's not a case of mutual obssession, we just have an interest in having a good laugh at their expensive & they simply have a little problem with our existence hehe

just think positively orange

[kappa273]

Originally Posted by Red Phoenix

ppl let's not drift off topic and start flagellating ourselves..

let's go back to ripping fun of our very bright brothers the LFers.

that's not a case of mutual obssession, we just have an interest in having a good laugh at their expensive & they simply have a little problem with our existence hehe

just think positively orange

actually today i checked their pathetic website and they had 2 articles not related to GMA.. one talked about football..

they have just discovered that there is life outside the idea of bashing GMA... i am hopeful one day they will be able to launch their own useful websites filled with useful information not related to GMA. this sound unimaginable and the road is long and difficult but they will reach the end.... in the year 3000...

kappa