THE SAUDI KING - Not a pleasant picture

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NYPress

Le Maitre Taki

Mister Fat

The world’s collective speed record was set the year Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. That country’s ruling family (all 1000 of them) got to Saudi Arabia at twice the speed of sound. It is a record that will stand forever, unless Saddam tries it again. The only other family that might possibly stand a chance of equaling the record are the Saudi rulers, all 30,000 of them.

You may have noticed that I refuse to call these rich camel-drivers by their titles because, if I did, I’d also have to refer to donkeys, mules and camels as royal.

Soon after I originally wrote on this theme in The Spectator, and while the miserable record-holders were still in Saudi hiding behind a large closet, a female member of the Al Sabah clan accosted me at a London dinner. She thought I had been terribly rude about the speedsters, and told me I was lucky I had not written what I had while her family was in power. The poor woman obviously didn’t get it. In the West in general and England in particular, making fun of the high and mighty is almost de rigueur. Worse, the woman thought she would intimidate me. I was not rude, but told her that although camel-drivers’ threats held no terror for me, I would make an exception because of the heroic manner in which her family had resisted Saddam. End of dinner for all intents and purposes.

It was not the first time I’d run afoul of billionaire camel jockeys. Throughout the 60s I used to gamble almost nightly in Aspinall’s club, the premier gambling joint of swinging London. Back then chemin-de-fer was the game to play, with Aspinall presiding over a rather cosmopolitan mix of punters, regulars like Lords Derby and Lucan, dukes as in Marlborough and Devonshire, business tycoons as in Henry Ford, known as the Deuce, Jimmy Goldsmith before he became Sir James, Hollywood types like Cubby Broccoli and a rotund son of the desert by the name of Fahd. Fahd is the present king of Saudi Arabia, a playboy king who has gotten so fat he is bedridden because his knees can no longer take the strain. Thirty-six years or so ago, however, he was not so fat, was always in the company of beautiful Levantine floozies and had taken a great dislike to yours truly right from the start.

It was mostly my fault. While casino flunkies referred to him as his royal highness, I pretended not to know better and always called him Mr. Fat. "Chemi" breeds a strange kind of camaraderie. We already knew each other quite well, were all addicted gamblers and drinkers and many of us played way above our means. Jimmy Goldsmith, who died a billionaire, didn’t have a bean to his name but played on credit, as Aspinall was convinced that one day Jimmy would make it. Derby would lose half a million pounds in one night (when the pound was worth $4.80), sell a couple of pictures from his vast family collection and continue; and I, needless to say, would go crying to Daddy with assorted sob stories.

The one with unlimited credit was, of course, Mr. Fat. And the Deuce. During a particularly wild game one evening I bancoed Mr. Fat, turned my cards over showing two fours. Only a nine beat could beat me, which Mr. Fat duly had. I got up, went to the bathroom and threw up. Everyone had a good laugh, the game went on and then Mr. Fat did something extraordinary. He offered me back the chips I had just lost to him. It was an extremely generous act, but one I couldn’t accept, especially as it was made in public. (I almost threw up again while saying thanks but no thanks.)

I don’t wish to sound ungrateful or petty, but it was a typical Saudi move. Fahd did not like me, but decided to put me in his debt forever by, well, bribing me. Just as the Saudis have been bribing radicals and Islamofascists for years. In their double game, they pretend to be allies in a common struggle against Saddam Hussein while they spread Wahhabi ideology everywhere Muslims are to be found. As Stephen Schwartz wrote in The Spectator, "Not all Muslims are suicide bombers, but all Muslim suicide bombers are Wahhabis…"

Bin Laden is a Wahhabi, as were the Egyptians who murdered tourists and bathed in their blood. The Taliban practices a variant of Wahhabism. Crown Prince Abdullah, who is doing the day-to-day running of Saudi Arabia for the incapacitated Fahd, is close to the Wahhabi clerics. So what is the role of Saudi Arabia in this latest crisis? The question cannot be asked because American companies depend too much on Saudi oil while the politicians have all become much too cozy with Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to Washington. Imagine, the first thing the FBI did after the WTC outrage was to safeguard the family of Osama bin Laden and whisk them out of the country.

Alas, when President Bush says he will punish not just the terrorists but also the countries that harbor them, he might have to begin with the United States.

-- Anonymous, October 18, 2001

Answers

Alas, when President Bush says he will punish not just the terrorists but also the countries that harbor them, he might have to begin with the United States

Um, we aren't harboring them, they are hiding here. And we are looking for them so we can bring them to justice, or vice versa.

This author needs a dictionary.

-- Anonymous, October 18, 2001


I think it's his way of criticizing the FBI for allowing a large number of bin Laden's family to stay in this country without sueveillance of any kind and then to "whisk" them away. Despite the stories of bin Laden being "disowned," remember he called his stepmother and indicated the attacks were going to happen.

-- Anonymous, October 18, 2001

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