James Foley's Mother Blasts White House: Bungled Rescue, Threatened Us

James Foley's Mother Blasts White House: Bungled Rescue, Threatened Us

on Fri, 12 Sep 2014

Thursday night CNN's Anderson Cooper interviewed James Foley's mother Diane about the Obama Administration's A-to-Z mishandling of her son's kidnapping and eventual beheading at the hands of ISIS.

Without a hint of bitterness, just remorse, this impressive woman relays the horror story of a government that was not only a step behind the family's own intelligence-gathering about their son's well-being and whereabouts, but also threatened the family with prosecution if they were to make an attempt to raise the ransom money:

"I think our efforts to get Jim freed were an annoyance [to the government]," Foley told Cooper. "It didn't seem to be in the strategic interest, if you will."

“We were just told to trust that he would be freed, somehow, miraculously, and he wasn’t, was he?”

Foley said that the Administration told the family "not go to the media," that the "government would not exchange prisoners," or "do a military action."

More than once the family was threatened with prosecution if they attempted to raise a ransom. "We were told we could not raise ransom. That it was illegal -- we might be prosecuted. … I was horrified, horrified."

We now know there was an attempt to rescue Foley. Ms. Foley described that attempt as, "Late. Very Late. We feel that [Jim's] location was known for more than a year." She added, "[It] was rather frightening. We tended to know everything before the FBI or anyone else." When asked how, Foley explained, "Because we did everything we could." That included numerous trips to Europe and regular contact with groups that specialize in keeping tabs on hostages. "The FBI used us for information," she added.

An important piece of context for all this is to keep mind that while Foley and another American journalist, Steven Sotloff (who was also beheaded), were held hostage, the Obama Administration did swap five notorious and deadly Taliban Gitmo prisoners for Bowe Bergdahl, an Army sergeant who has been accused by a number of his platoon mates of desertion, and worse. Few question that Bergdahl deserted his post or that up to six servicemen were killed in the search for him.

While CNN and Cooper deserve credit for broadcasting the interview, because Barack Obama is the media's precious, this is about as far as her comments will go. Just as Media Star Cindy Sheehan was discarded by the media the day she turned her anti-war activities from Bush to Obama, Ms. Foley's comments are inconvenient and will soon be disappeared.

The media has already memory-holed the Sotloff family.