It has already been six months since the James Foley beheading at the hands of ISIS militants. Still, this nightmare continues to play on the heads of American citizen, especially those who have relatives in Middle East fighting the war for the United States.
For the mother of the beheaded American journalist in Syria, they think that they never got the help that they needed from the government. Even worse, they were threatened by the administration should they try to raise money for the ransom of her son.
In an interview with CNN's Andersoon Cooper, Diane Foley revealed that an officer from the National Security Council threatened them that they'll be prosecuted once they make efforts to save their son.
“Three times he intimidated us with that message. We were horrified he would say that. He just told us we would be prosecuted. We knew we had to save our son,” she said.
The victim's brother, Michael, also told ABC that a high-ranking State Department warned them that they'll be charged of violating anti-terrorism laws if he paid ISIS. Because of these warnings, the family decided to stop seeking donations for the ransom.
“It slowed my parents down quite a bit. They didn’t want to do anything that could get them in trouble. It slowed them down for months in raising money. Who knows what might have happened?” Michael said.
For Mrs. Foley, the government's effort to rescue to stop James Foley beheading wasn't enough. She even thinks that it wasn't a priority by the administration.
"I think our efforts to get Jim freed were an annoyance" to the U.S. government, Diane Foley told CNN's Anderson Cooper in an interview that aired Thursday. "It didn't seem to be in (U.S.) strategic interest, if you will."
"Jim was killed in the most horrific way. He was sacrificed because of just a lack of coordination, lack of communication, lack of prioritization," she added. "As a family, we had to find our way through this on our own."
"We were just told to trust that he would be freed somehow, miraculously," Foley's mother told CNN. "And he wasn't, was he?"
