James Foley, the American journalist beheaded by the Islamic State in August of 2014. Foley was a freelance journalist who covered Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. In 2011, he was kidnapped and held for 44 days in Libya. A year after his release, he was kidnapped again—this time in Syria. He wasn’t seen again until images of his beheading were broadcast around the world. Discussing his work, Foley said, “I believe frontline journalism is important. Without these photos and videos and firsthand experience, you can’t really tell the world how bad it might be.” Since his death, his mother Diane Foley has become a leading critic of a U.S. policy to refuse to negotiate or pay ransom to captors unlike European nations. In November, she told Congress that her son would be alive today had he been French, Spanish, German, Italian or Danish.
Diane Foley talking:
It was Thanksgiving. It was actually the day—the morning after Thanksgiving, when we had begun to be concerned because we had not heard from Jim. And that was very unlike him, because even when he was in the field, he would always, you know, reach out at holidays, and particularly Thanksgiving. And we have not heard from him. So the next morning, we were on the couch having a cup of coffee, and the phone rang. And we heard from his colleague, Clare Gillis, and she informed us that Jim had not returned the night before and that a witness said he had been kidnapped. We were in shock that it could happen again, really, you know, within a year of his other—well, a year and a half of his other capture in Libya. So we were incredulous that it could happen again, and very much in shock.
Jim was our oldest, you know, marched to his own drummer. He was his own—very much his own person. But Jim had many gifts in that he was just curious in people, wanted to get everybody’s story. And so, when he finally found journalism, or it found him, it was like a perfect match. It was like—you know, Jim was an incredible listener. And so it really—he had found something that—a way to give voice to a lot of people who had stories to tell, important stories for the world to know.
Jim covered war to end war. he wanted to understand the issues, and certainly particularly the issues of the civilians and the children. And he really felt our world, the Western world, really needed to know those stories. So he—the more suffering he saw, truly the more committed he became to all of that. He really felt he had promises to keep. He became very committed. He was very touched by the goodness of so many of the local Syrians, so therefore he became very passionate about that story.
Brian Oakes talking:
I’ve known Jim since we were seven years old, and we were first graders together in a little town called Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. Very rural, picturesque, kind of Norman Rockwell upbringing. I’ve known the Foley family my—pretty much my entire life, as well. So it’s a very personal story for me. And, you know, knowing Jim my entire life and all that’s happened in the past three, four years, you get very protective of your loved ones and your friends after they pass. And, you know, Jim became a—went to Medill journalism school and in 2008 was when he did his first embed, and it was with the Indiana National Guard, and he went to Afghanistan. So—and after that, he—that’s when he went to Libya to cover the Libya revolution. So, when Jim was captured in Libya, I was in New York City. And, you know, I’m sure the Foleys can speak more about reactions, but as a friend, it was shocking and scary
my relationship with Jim has always been very open and honest and trustworthy. So, you know, you always want to support your friends, but at the same time you always want to understand why they want to do the things they do. Personally, you know, I—I think what we have to understand is that when Jim went into Syria, we knew it was dangerous, but, you know, ISIS was not—didn’t even exist. So I think a lot of misconceptions about when Jim went into—first went into Syria is, well, why would he go there when ISIS was around? ISIS was nowhere on anyone’s radar at that time.
John Foley talking:
I was very, very concerned, and asked him, “Well, why do you have to do this?” And, you know, he was nearly 40 years old at that point in time. And as a parent of an adult child—as a parent of an adult child, it’s very difficult to say, “You can’t,” you know. Diane and I often—or at least on one occasion—asked him what his passion was. He said, “Ma, I found it.” You know, so, I’ll be honest with you, and this sounds very naive: I was excited for him because he was excited. I, obviously, at that time wasn’t aware of the risk. And Brian’s point is exactly correct: ISIS wasn’t around. In fact, one of the last articles that Jimmy wrote was one indicating the revolution was becoming contaminated by groups like al-Qaeda and eventually ISIS. So he was there when this began. I think the second trip back was more difficult, because by that time we knew the risk, you know?
he had been in Libya, was captured, got out, went to Syria, then returned to Syria. came home and then returned to Syria in October. And we had a very difficult time with that, because it’s—you know, I mean, passion is one thing, but the question is, where was the common sense, or where was the—not to say, as Brian says, that he was reckless. But, I mean, I’m not a hero. I guess my point is, is that I couldn’t see why or how somebody could go to a place where he or she could be captured, tortured and killed. And again, I’m going to express my cowardice in that no story was worth that to me.
I think, he had made commitments with people in country that he was coming back. I don’t know what they were. Either that or he had this deep, deep conviction that he had to be there to tell the story, because if he wasn’t going to do it, nobody else was. And he could feel the suffering and see the destruction and the needlessness of this whole thing, you know.
One month after Jim Foley was beheaded by ISIS, on September 10, 2014, President Obama mentioned that in one speech. Twelve days after President Obama gave the speech, the U.S. began bombing Syria.
Clare Gillis talking:
I saw a very interesting article. I reference it in the movie, and you can look it up pretty easily yourself. It’s a Wall Street Journal poll that showed that 94 percent of the Americans they had surveyed, which were all registered voters, 94 percent of them were aware of who James Foley was and how he died, which makes his beheading the second most known event in recent American history after 9/11, which is staggering to me. And I think it would have been very disturbing to him, because his—you know, he never wanted his face to be anywhere near what he—what he went there for. He went there to show the suffering of the Syrian people. He devoted, you know, quite literally, his life to doing that. And to have become the sort of poster boy for renewed American involvement in the region, for—you know, he’s a propaganda element on any side of the conflict. You can see how he has been used for the coalition aircraft that are striking against ISIS. And if you take a look at ISIS recruiting material, you’ll see a tremendous amount of his imagery and his words being used to draw new recruits to ISIS. So it’s just this—it’s this propaganda, horrible gift that keeps on giving and reaping very bad fruits.
Diane Foley talking:
we began to be a bit public after Christmas, you know, of 2012, because we were frantic. It was already, you know, six weeks into his captivity, and he had vanished. And so, you know, Jim’s older brother—or our next youngest, actually, brother Michael, initially was very involved, and I was. And also GlobalPost, one of the media organizations that he was working for, very quickly offered to stand up a security team to help our efforts. So we felt very grateful that we had the FBI, the security team, all of Jim’s colleagues on the ground. Clare Gillis, Nicole Tung and many others were looking for him. There was a big outreach at that point. But we couldn’t find him.
One of the things the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation is trying to do is to collaborate with the government so that there can be better interagency communication and better support for American families. There obviously was some of that lacking during our experience. Mainly communication was missing. You know, I think we have a very big government, and it was very hard for there to be communication between our many agencies, between FBI and State and intelligence.
[They threatened you with prison if you tried to save your son?]
we can’t say “they.” You know, this individual did. And, you know, that was very intimidating. And we had had legal counsel that there was no precedent for that, that other American families had in fact needed to raise ransom in a kidnap situation. So, I knew, we knew, John and I knew, that that was not true. But it was very intimidating because he was from the National Security Council. So it was obviously very upsetting to all of us as families, and frightening, you know, because we wanted and needed the help of our government to get them out, hopefully, you know.
Then the issue of countries that negotiated for their hostages and countries that didn’t. The U.S. didn’t. Countries like France clearly did.
Diane at testimony:
Our government’s abandonment of Jim allowed their deaths to be used as propaganda for ISIS recruitment, thus strengthening and emboldening ISIS. It surely helped in their recruitment of other violent people who want to destroy us. As I said before, at one point there were more than 20 Western hostages held together, all of whom are citizens of our allies. All our Western allies valued their citizens enough to negotiate for their freedom. Had Jim been French, Spanish, German, Italian or Danish, he would be alive today.
Nicolas Hénin, Pierre Torres, the French hostage who was released.
Pierre Torres talking:
You have to realize that France is not America. It’s a small country. We don’t have such a thing as CIA, and we don’t put this amount of money in those things. But they managed to get their guys out, while the Americans’ government completely failed. So now I think the American government, and also the British government, have to give back big accounts on what’s failed and what they did, because it’s not acceptable.
Diane Foley & John Foley talking:
we don’t know all of the details at all. All we know is that they were willing to talk with the—or find ways to talk with the captors, and thus find a commonality, a way to get their hostages released. So—but, however, our government finds that problematic, because, of course, large sums of money were exchanged in these negotiations, which of course funds the terrorism and the continued kidnapping. So this is a very complex problem.
There were a lot of disconnects. And that is partly why this is one of our major campaigns. It is—there were, you know, issues, problems. But again, we want to be part of that solution. And we are seeing some progress, some real progress, in a very complicated situation, very complex, dangerous world. So, that is what is making us hopeful.
I can’t understate the fact that our government, President Obama, the Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell, the evaluation of that policy that led to the cell, has been extremely honest and extremely thorough. So, the deficiencies that we dealt with have been addressed. And I think that it’s—going back is not going to do Jimmy any good. It’s not going to do us any good. What we have to do is focus on the future. And I think we have a brighter future because of what was done because of the four Americans and their loss of life.
U.S. ransom policy really hasn’t changed. Our policy states that we can negotiate but not make concessions. You know, our policy is certainly against ransom and, you know, the trading of prisoners and such. The problem is, this is not black and white, and our government certainly realizes that. There’s a lot of grey areas. And I guess—we would like Jim’s legacy to be such that at least this issue is a priority, that American hostages are important, and that we need the best of what our FBI, intelligence and State Department can do to free them.
Brian Oakes talking:
when you start talking about responsibilities, I think it’s really important to expand the idea of responsibility. You know, you can talk about government responsibility, you can talk about personal responsibility. And I think we all, in a way, have a responsibility. And I think one other big factor that I hope that the film brings up is that, you know, Jim was a freelance journalist, and that’s a very different job description than a journalist who works for a foreign bureau.
Clare Gillis talking:
Freelancers decide to work together just on the basis of this initial, quick-read chemistry. I saw this new guy who I hadn’t met before. He looked friendly enough. So I said, “Hey, what’s up?” He said, “Oh, not much, going to the front line.” And he had heard a lot about Libya and the fact that it was very cheap to work. Rebels and protesters were eager to show us their side of the story. You know, they were driving us all over for free. They were translating for us for free.
Nicole Tung talking:
Many of us never really experienced the luxury of journalism in its heyday. What we do is journalism on a shoestring budget. So we’ve had to be a lot more resourceful in a way and just more street-savvy.
Brian Oakes talking:
I personally believe that we also have to look at the people that hire journalists, whether freelance or [inaudible]. So I think with the foreign bureaus and the media companies, I think there’s also—you know, we can talk about government responsibility, but I think there’s also the employer responsibility, and I think that’s just an important part of the equation.
_____
Diane Foley
mother of James Foley.
John Foley
father of James Foley.
Brian Oakes
director of the HBO documentary, Jim: The James Foley Story.
— source democracynow.org