News:

CNN reported on the 13^th September that Diane Foley, mother of slain journalist James Foley, said in an interview that: "I think our efforts to get Jim freed were an annoyance to the U.S. government...It didn't seem to be in (U.S.) strategic interest, if you will." She also told CNN's Anderson Cooper that officials asked family members to "not go to the media." She said they were told that the "government would not exchange prisoners," or carry out "military action" to try to rescue her son.

Comment:

The U.S. government had no "strategic interest" in saving James Foley, because the video of his beheading by self proclaimed ISIS captors could better serve U.S. regional interests than his safe release. This is why the family of James Foley were viciously threatened by senior government officials when they worked for his release and tried to gather money for a ransom payment. CNN reported that Diane Foley said "the family was told many times that raising ransom 'was illegal (and) we might be prosecuted'."

The cruel video showing the last moments of her son's 19 months in captivity has raised international support for U.S. action in the Middle East and been a stirring symbol for galvanizing national support for years of future intervention in the name of opposing barbarity. The day before Diane Foley's comments, Obama said, "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".

One of these journalists was Diane Foley's son, who she said was "sacrificed" by the U.S. government. If it was a sacrifice, then it was for wider interests, but these interests have nothing to do with opposing barbarity because there is no shortage of video footage, eye witness testimony and expert reports documenting murder, torture and even the use of chemical weapons by other parties to the turmoil in Syria, and also Iraq, that far exceed the scale of what ISIS has perpetrated, and yet these acts of barbarism have not drawn any serious response.

The U.S. gained a 'blank cheque' from the video of James Foley's killing that will provide justification for interference, not only in Syria and Iraq, but other countries. John Kerry, for example, stated that Egypt is in the front line against terrorism and linked the issue of terrorism in Egypt's Sinai with the fight against ISIS. The path ahead will be long and twisted, and with the U.S. in the lead, barbarity may be less personal, but more abundant, than ever before.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by

Dr. Abdullah Robin