[Rudaw] Diane Foley learned her son’s fate not from any government official but from a sobbing journalist who asked if she’d been on Twitter.
Foley had not, but the ghastly images weren’t hard to find. President Barack Obama
They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them ...
soon confirmed the news to the world: James Foley, a 40-year-old American journalist kidnapped in Syria two years earlier, was the American beheaded by Islamic State
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...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
snuffies in a video circulating online.
For many in the United States, the August 2014 video brought home the extent of the Islamic State’s violence and brutality. For Diane Foley it was a galvanizing moment, emblematic of the helplessness she felt during her son’s captivity and the lack of urgency she sensed from American officials tasked with helping her. The New Hampshire woman channeled her grief into action, becoming an unofficial ambassador for hostages and their loved ones and helping reshape the US government response when Americans are captured by Death Eaters and kidnappers across the globe.
The goal is to prevent other families from experiencing the fragmented, ineffective government response she says she endured, when multiple officials and agencies worked the case without anyone being singularly responsible for getting him home, and warned her and other hostage families of potential prosecution if they paid ransom to kidnappers.
"Having gone through everything that Diane went through with Jim and the tragedy involved with that, for her to do what she’s doing right now, is probably one of the most noble things I’ve ever seen in a person," said former fusion cell director Rob Saale.
The most meaningful change was a 2015 B.O. regime directive that created an FBI-led fusion cell to work full-time on hostage cases and appointed a State Department special envoy to handle diplomatic negotiations. A June survey sponsored by Foley’s foundation said hostage families report significantly more helpful government interactions than before that overhaul, but still want more communication. Current and former government officials describe the hostage recovery process, and communicating with families, as an urgent priority.
The fusion cell structure remains intact under President Donald Trump
...The man who was so stupid he beat fourteen professional politicians, a former tech CEO, and a brain surgeon for the Republican nomination in 2016, then beat The Smartest Woman in the World in the general election...
, who Foley praises for his interest in hostage issues despite an occasional collision of values with his administration. US officials have secured the release of several high-profile American hostages and foreign government detainees, though other cases remain unresolved, including journalist Austin Tice , who officials believe is alive in Syria following his 2012 capture, and a group of Citgo Petroleum executives held by Venezuela
 ...a country in Central America that sits on an enormous pool of oil. Formerly the most prospereous country in the region, it became infested with Commies sniffing almost unlimited wealth. It turned out the wealth wasn't unlimited, the economy collapsed under the clownish Hugo Chavez, the murder rate exceeds places like Honduras and El Salvador, and a significant proportion of the populace as refugeed to Colombia and points south...
known collectively as the Citgo 6.
"To talk to someone that on a human level understands and maybe has even resolved their case, it’s huge, it’s really huge," said Cristina Vaddell, whose father Tomeu is among the executives.
Foley knows where they are because she was there herself, twice.
Jim, who’d turned to conflict journalism after trying his hand at teaching, was captured for six weeks in 2011 by pro-Qadaffy forces while covering Libyan unrest. He returned home restless, then resumed reporting in the Middle East in time to chronicle ISIS’s rise.
The 2012 Thanksgiving holiday came and went with no word from Foley, which his family found disquieting since he’d always been good at checking in. She learned from his colleagues the next morning that he’d been apprehended by a jihadist group.
The next two years brought promising leads but also bouts of inactivity and frustrating government interactions.
The first FBI official assigned to the case was inexperienced, Foley said. When she’d contact the State Department, it seemed she was speaking to a different person each time. The government initially recommended that she keep quiet about the ordeal, making her feel alone. And she felt out of the loop on developments, learning of an unsuccessful Navy SEALs rescue attempt ‐ Foley and other hostages had already been relocated ‐ only after her son’s death.
The captors established contact in the fall of 2013, making a series of demands, including for 100 million euros and the release of Moslem prisoners. Foley raised $1 million in pledges despite White House warnings that ransom payments could violate a law against supporting foreign terrorist organizations, an admonishment she still finds cruel and unnecessary.
Communications ceased around Christmas, resurfacing in July with a threat to murder Foley.
The video the following month showed Foley kneeling in an orange jumpsuit beside a man in black clutching a knife to his captive’s throat. It fades to black before the beheading is completed. The killer, Mohammed Emwazi, was later killed in a US strike.
"I think everyone was in shock," Foley said. "I think our FBI was in shock. We were caught with our pants down. Nobody ever expected this."
Foley was the first of several Western hostages killed by ISIS that year, murders that shook the B.O. regime into action and humbled officials who conceded shortcomings.
"The government was letting the families down, letting the hostages down. We were not well-coordinated," said Jen Easterly, former B.O. regime senior counterterrorism director.
The next June, Obama announced the fusion cell’s creation, saying the government was "changing how we do business." He also softened the rhetoric on ransom payments: while the government would not make them, Obama said, it had also never prosecuted families who had done so on their own and had no interest in compounding their pain.
Yet a recent survey from Foley’s foundation shows hostage families still want better clarity on US policies and laws, including on ransom and just how far immunity from prosecution will extend.
Though Foley said she doesn’t think such payments, which are common among Europe
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
an countries and in some cases have facilitated releases, are necessarily the answer, she believes it’s imperative US officials interact directly with captors. She points to research challenging the premise that concessions only serve to incentivize kidnappers.
"Part of the problem is, if you don’t engage with captors, there’s zero chance of getting anyone home," Foley said. "Are our citizens enough of a priority that we will use all that we can as a government to negotiate ... to find out what do they really want."
More work remains, though, including support on basic quality-of-life issues for hostages who do make it home.
The foundation aims to fill that void, with a support network of sorts so hostage families can connect with each other. It’s also asserted itself politically, with Foley publication opposing US withdrawal from Syria and advocating for legislation named after former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who vanished in Iran, to give more resources to hostages and sanction captors. And it’s encouraged additional attention for Americans who are held by foreign governments, rather than terror groups, and therefore not technically regarded as hostages entitled to the fusion cell’s services.
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