This looks like the Addams family. Faisal bin Abdulaziz is seen here on the left alongside his dad, King Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia (seated). The big Lurch-looking dude in the sunglasses is Faisal’s brother Saud. Who would have thought one of their lives would end in assassination?
I sit here typing these words less than 48 hours after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. The Left screamed long enough about how Trump was supposed to be the end of global civilization, and some unhinged nutjob finally paid attention. The headlines trumpet the FBI’s tireless efforts at finding a motive.
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How about this? President Biden and every other left-winger in the country have been tacitly begging somebody to do this for seven years now. Kathy Griffin, the legendarily unfunny failed comedienne, actually did a photoshoot holding up a facsimile of Trump’s bloody severed head. In the context of this weekend’s festivities, that has not aged well.
Opinions, Everybody’s Got One…
I’m not necessarily Donald Trump’s biggest fan. He’s always been lightyears ahead of his Left-wing competition, but the guy’s got some well-publicized character flaws. However, I didn’t vote for him because I wanted a new best friend. I voted for him because I wanted somebody to sit on America’s front porch with a big honking stick. He was great at that.
Trump did a superb job of making America scary again. Just ask the relatives of the esteemed Iranian ex-psychopath Qasem Soleimani. The world seems to work better when folks are a little bit afraid of Uncle Sam. We haven’t had that in a long time, and it shows.
We’re Not So Special
By the time you read this, the sordid details of the Trump assassination attempt should be starting to gel. Once everything is laid bare, I’ll no doubt write it up. Regardless, this has already been the most eventful Presidential election in my lifetime.
While things have been undeniably sordid, they were not particularly unusual when viewed through the lens of history. Human beings just suck, like a lot. We have a long and illustrious history of venting our grievances against our leaders through the barrel of a gun. Back in 1975 in Saudi Arabia, vengeance actually came from a relative.
The Players In An Earlier Assassination
I don’t pretend to understand the machinations of the Royal House of Saud. A true monarchy in the traditional sense, these potentates each have scads of kids with multiple women. The royal family tree is more like some kind of vast interdigitated creeping vine.
The Saudis are not the sort to throw convivial family picnics where cordial blood relationships are cemented. Deep-fried chicken and baked beans slathered in bacon grease are frowned upon thereabouts. Toss in a trillion or so petrodollars that literally sprang up out of the ground and you have the chemical formula for family friction.
The Assassination Mark
King Faisal had a convoluted upbringing. Now stick with me here, this is complicated. I’m doing the best I can.
Faisal bin Abdulaziz al Saud was born in 1906 in Riyadh. His dad was Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman, the Emir of Nejd. His mom was Tarfa bint Abdullah Al Sheikh. Tarfa descended from the religious leader Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab. Faisal had an older sister who married a cousin. Faisal’s mom died when the boy was six months old, so he was raised by his maternal grandparents.
The Regent Comes of Age
Faisal engaged in an intensive study of Islamic Law and the Quran that culminated at age nine. Like any proper royal, he was well-versed in horsemanship, military affairs, and politics. It was clear that the boy was being groomed for something special.
Faisal was the first member of the Saudi royal family to see England. From there he tasted France as well, all in an official capacity. In 1926 at the age of twenty, Faisal was granted the title Viceroy of Hejaz, whatever that actually means. Going forward he served as a jet-setting diplomat, acting as the face of the government around both the region and the world.
Faisal started out as a statesman before eventually being crowned King of Saudi Arabia in 1964. He assumed the throne soon after slavery was abolished across the kingdom. The final tranche of 1,682 freedmen earned their owners a flat $2,000 apiece paid by the government in 1962. The Saudis were still holding slaves a mere four years before I was born. Wow.
Everything Changes
In the early part of the 20th century, Saudi royalty was a pretty big deal, but not many folks outside the region much cared. Then the entire planet went to war, and somebody thought to check the desert sands of the Middle East for oil. The first serious oil field, appropriately titled, “Prosperity Well,” was drilled in 1938. A bazillion dollars later, Saudi Arabia was on the map.
It’s tough to be the nouveaux rich. A redneck with a lot of money is still just a well-scrubbed redneck. While Faisal rose to the occasion and generally behaved himself, not everyone in his massive extended family felt constrained to do so.
The Origins of a Proper Villain
Faisal was a pretty popular name in Saudi Arabia. The younger Faisal bin Musa’id bin Abdulaziz (not to be confused with King Faisal we discussed previously) was born in 1944 to Prince Musa’id bin Abdulaziz. This particular Faisal’s dad was the son of the founder of Saudi Arabia and half-brother to fully half a dozen Saudi kings. However, Little Faisal’s old man did not wear his newfound wealth well.
Once Saudi Arabia discovered oil, the royal family became filthy rich overnight. Most of the male kids were sent off to the US and Europe to absorb a little culture. Prince Musa’id bin Abdulaziz spent time in both London and Paris.
While in Paris, the young man was, “Caught in an inappropriate manner.” I can only imagine the details, but I’d bet they involved some hot French femmes. Musa’id soon found himself remanded back home to face Daddy’s wrath. King Abdulaziz subsequently confined the wayward youth to his room, or, in this case to the sprawling palace, until he seemed to have learned his lesson.
Musa’id eventually found time to court a fellow royal named Watfa. They produced a son named Faisal bin Musa’id born in Riyadh in 1940. Musa’id eventually grew weary of Watfa and divorced her, but not before fathering a bunch of kids in addition to Faisal.
Seeds of Discontent
In 1965, there was a sweeping violent demonstration in Riyadh protesting the introduction of television in the Saudi kingdom. That seems pretty silly in retrospect. The crux of the protestors’ grief was that depictions of the human form were offensive. Not meaning to seem flippant, but I’ve no idea how they ever managed the thorny problem of mirrors or reflections in still water. When the dust settled on the TV brouhaha, Faisal’s brother Khaled was dead.
King Faisal was behind the infamous television debacle along with a variety of other secular reforms. All of this was designed to drag Saudi Arabia out of the Iron Age and into the modern era. Along the way, however, the king made some determined enemies. His nephew, the one also named Faisal, was counted among them.
Nobody is sure what actually got the younger upstart Faisal energized. These are hot-blooded people. It often doesn’t take a whole lot to get killed over there.
Prince Faisal’s brother Khaled was purportedly killed resisting arrest at his home. The details were fuzzy, and there never was a proper investigation. Regardless, around that time, young Faisal hatched a plan.
The Assassination In Action
On 25 March 1975, King Faisal was hosting a reception for visiting dignitaries, something called a majlis in that culture. Among the delegation was lurking the younger Prince Faisal. The king recognized his nephew in the crowd and called him forward. As the younger Faisal approached, the king lowered his head to allow him to kiss it, which was a thing they did. I’ve had uncles–that sounds pretty icky to me.
The younger Faisal suddenly produced a compact .38-caliber revolver from underneath his flowing Arabian robes. The first round struck his uncle in the chin. The second entered through his ear. A third went wide.
The assassin then tossed the gun away as the king slumped to the floor. A nearby bodyguard responded immediately, smacking the prince vigorously with a sheathed sword. The timely intervention by the Saudi oil minister, Ahmed Zaki Yamani, was the only thing that kept the security detail from beating the man to death.
The Aftermath Of The Assassination
The king was rushed to the nearby hospital where heroic measures were expended in an effort at saving his life. This included an open heart massage and extensive blood transfusions. However, the damage was done.
Throughout it all, Prince Faisal remained calm. As a result, the official narrative in the immediate aftermath was that he had lost his mind. “Deranged” was the term used in the press releases. However, a distinguished panel of Saudi physicians soon established that he appeared to have been in his right mind at the time of the assassination.
The wheels of justice turn swiftly in the Kingdom of Saud. Less than three months after the assassination, a Sharia court found Faisal guilty of the king’s murder. Mere hours after the verdict was read, Saudi officials led Prince Faisal to the Deera Square in Riyadh. There they summarily chopped his head off with a single stroke from a gold-handled sword.
Whatever practical motivations Faisal had for shooting his uncle in the head the prince took with him to the grave. Some thought he was angry because his royal allowance was inadequate ($200k per annum in today’s money).
Another theory was that the king had unfairly restricted him to Saudi Arabia where he could not feed his drug and alcohol habit. Others held that this was somehow revenge for the death of his brother Khaled. Who knows? They lopped the guy’s head off before anybody got the details straight.
Ruminations
Trump survived his recent assassination attempt by a literal whisker. The iconography to spawn from the event—Trump shaking his bloody fist with the American flag in the background—was quite literally perfect. It was so perfect that it looked scripted. Naturally, before the dust settled Internet conspiracy theorists were suggesting exactly that.
Sixteen hours after being shot in the ear, Donald Trump purportedly played a round of golf. After draining a 20-foot putt he reportedly joked to his buddies, “Unlike the shooter, I don’t miss.” Stuff like that is red meat to guys like me.
You wouldn’t think that an overweight old guy with orange hair might ever successfully play the part of a brass-balled Chuck Norris-grade testosterone donor, yet here we are. Donald Trump has now been under fire for real, and on international TV no less. After his attempted assassination, he neither cowered nor ran. He spontaneously shook his fist and spit lightning out of his eyes, not knowing in the immediate aftermath how badly he was hurt or whether or not the threat had been neutralized. For all of his bombast and baggage, Trump’s performance in Pennsylvania was undeniably freaking awesome.
Epilogue
A final word on Corey Comperatore, the great American who was killed during the attempted assassination of President Trump. Corey threw himself across his family when the shooting started and subsequently traded his life to save theirs. We talk about heroes in this space most every week. There was a purity to Comperatore’s sacrifice that seems to eclipse them all. I will have myself had a successful life if I can be half the husband and father that man was.
