© CNNFailure: Diane Foley told CNN that she felt extremely let down by the US government's handling of her son's capture and rescue
On the 13th anniversary of 9/11 and the day after President Obama addressed the nation and finally offered a strategy to defeat ISIS, Diane Foley told CNN that 'as an American', she was 'embarrassed and appalled' at the efforts to rescue her son from captivity.
Articulate and thoughtful throughout her interview, Mrs. Foley made the startling claim that US officials threatened her family with prosecution if they tried to raise a ransom for Foley, 40, and said 'Jim was sacrificed because of a lack of communication and prioritization.'
© APDevastated: Diane and John Foley talk to reporters, on Wednesday August 20, 2014 outside their home in Rochester, New Hampshire. The day before shocking footage of their son's execution was posted online
'Jim was killed in the most horrific way. He was sacrificed because of just a lack of coordination, lack of communication, lack of prioritization,' said Diane Foley. 'As a family, we had to find our way through this on our own.'
Comment: Jim was sacrificed in order to usher in another round of "limbic warfare." The West is using the Islamic State to move their agenda forward in the Middle East:
- The West taught its monster well: Islamic State tortured James Foley and other Westerners with harsh CIA tactics
Still grieving, Diane Foley also said US officials told her they would not exchange prisoners or carry out any military action to try and rescue her son.
At times withering in her assessment of the Obama administration's co-ordination with her family, Mrs. Foley poured scorn on the Pentagon's claim they tried to rescue Foley on July 4, only to raid the wrong base.
Speaking to CNN's Anderson Cooper, Mrs. Foley said her family knew where James Foley was being held on two separate occasions in Syria, and that each time he was there for months following his capture on Thanksgiving, 2012.
She bemoaned the fact that a military option took so long to put together and felt the whole disastrous operation, which Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel surprisingly labeled 'Flawless', was in fact 'awful'.
In a damning indictment of the effort at home and abroad to rescue Foley, who was kidnapped in northern Syria while working for GlobalPost, Mrs. Foley said that the FBI were asking her family for information on her eldest son.
'We tended to know everything before the FBI or anyone else. .... Everyone was kind and supportive, but the FBI used us for information,' she said.
Asked why this was, Mrs. Foley said, 'Because we did everything we could.'
Throughout the 20 month ordeal, Mrs. Foley said she came to regard her and her family's efforts to rescue James as 'an annoyance' to the administration and began to feel that their desperation to bring James Foley home did not 'seem to be in the strategic interest, if you will.'
Comment: To a psychopathic regime based on psychopathic interests, a normal human's reactions are more than annoying, they are a threat:
What would happen if a state of affairs ensued which conferred internal peace, corresponding order, and relative prosperity within the nation?
The overwhelming majority of the country's population -being normal - would make skillful use of all the emerging possibilities, taking advantage of their superior qualifications to fight for an ever-increasing scope of activities. Thanks to their higher numbers, there would be a higher birth rate of their kind, and their power would increase. This majority would be joined by some sons from the privileged class who did not inherit the psychopathic genes. The pathocracy's dominance would weaken steadily, finally leading to a situation wherein the society of normal people take back the power. To the pathocrats, this is a known and nightmarish vision.
Thus, the biological, psychological, moral, and economic destruction of this majority of normal people is a "biological" necessity to the pathocrats. Many means serve this end, starting with concentration camps and including warfare with an obstinate, well-armed foe who will devastate and debilitate the human power thrown at him, namely the very power jeopardizing pathocrats rule. Once safely dead, the soldiers will thereupon be decreed heroes to be revered, useful for raising a new generation faithful to the pathocracy.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said during his daily briefing with reporters on Friday that Foley's rescue was indeed a 'priority' to the administration as evidenced by the 'high-risk mission' carried out by the administration to find recover him.
Earnest claimed that the mission 'was successfully executed' even though it did not bring about the release of Mrs. Foley's son.
The Obama spokesman said he was not in 'a position to detail the kinds of conversations' that took place between the Obama administration that the Foley family, however, and directed questions about the threat of prosecution to the Department of Justice.
Speaking generally, Earnest confirmed that it is the policy of the administration not to pay ransoms. That policy stops terrorist organizations from having a stream of funds and it keeps Americans safe, he said.
© AFP / Getty ImagesUS freelance reporter James Foley was kidnapped in war-torn Syria in November, 2012 and executed by his ISIS captors in a video posted online on August 19 of this year
She confirmed that the Foley family asked questions about those laws while their son was being held hostage and that the government provided them answers.
'But this department would never and did not not ever intend to, nor do think we ever did anything that we would consider threatening,' she said.
She later said that 'everything that we do is driven by what would be best for the hostages. Period. Full stop. Absolutely.'
On August 19, ISIS released a gruesome video online which showed the beheading of Foley by a masked ISIS militant, who told the camera in a British accent, that his 'real killer' was the United States.
Exactly two weeks later, another American journalist, Stephen Sotloff, was beheaded, apparently by the same man, who tells the camera, 'I'm back Obama'.
During the efforts to get James home, Mrs. Foley said she met good people, people who wanted to help, but was adamant that she didn't want to single anyone out and lay 'blame'.
Mrs. Foley said it was important to remember that ISIS is the enemy and not the United States.
Comment: Their aims of conquering the Middle East, and further destabilizing Syria and Iran in the process, are identical.
However, ultimately, she 'didn't feel that Jim was a priority.'
'We were just told to trust that he would be freed somehow, miraculously,' said Foley's mother to CNN. 'And he wasn't, was he?'
Speaking to CNN's Anderson Cooper, Diane Foley said that she felt cut off at every avenue by US officials and were threatened with prosecution should they try to pay for her son's return - a move that left her feeling 'horrified'.
Still startled by this aggressive enforcement of official US policy, Mrs. Foley said she couldn't believe it because 'no one has ever been prosecuted for trying to get their child back.'
Mrs. Foley said that of course she had watched the president's address to the nation on Wednesday night, but said that the US needs to reconsider its position on negotiating with terrorists.
'I pray that our government will be willing to learn from the mistakes that were made,' she said to CNN, 'and to acknowledge that there are better ways for American citizens to be treated.'
'This whole strategy to eliminate ISIS and the terror threat is important, obviously, so perhaps part of the strategic way of doing that is to bomb them, and to engage in force. But that only caused Jim's death,' she said.
'I guess all I'm trying to say is that our government needs to be shrewder, smarter, willing to negotiate with these people who hate us, so that we can find better ways to rid ourselves of terror.'
On Wednesday night from the White House, the president said of ISIS, 'They enslave, rape, and force women into marriage. They threatened a religious minority with genocide. In acts of barbarism, they took the lives of two American journalists -- Jim Foley and Steven Sotloff.'
Three weeks after Foley's death, the president finally outlined his strategy to defeat ISIS, after weeks of mixed messages, including admitting at one point that he had 'no strategy' for the militant group.
In response, US National Security Adviser Susan Rice said that she felt the Foley family had done an 'amazing job....to bring Jim home safely' and that she 'and others in the US government worked very hard with Diane Foley and her family to try to be supportive, to try to provide what information we could.'
She denied the mission to rescue him was a failure, despite the special forces team assaulting completly the wrong ISIS camp.
'Unfortunately, they were no longer there,' said Rice.
'But I think that effort ... underscores the importance that we attach to doing everything that we possibly can to bring Americans in captivity back home.'
Comment: For perspective on who is responsible for these deaths, watch: