Those who knew James Foley speak well of him. He seems to have met a dreadful death with courage. His final statement as put out by his murderers was a puzzle, however. In a steady voice, he criticized the United States, and laid the blame for his fate on President Obama and what he saw as American anti-Muslim policy that is violent and unjust. Addressing his brother, an air force pilot, he told him coldly to think about what he was doing when he flew bomber missions over Iraq. I assumed that his Islamic State murderers had dictated what he was to say, with the threat of torture if he did not sound sincere.
Not a bit of it. Daniel Greenfield is a reliable journalist, and he writes an article to spell out that Foley held the United States in contempt and had gone to Syria to associate with the Sunni rebels and help them overthrow Bashar Assad. The obituaries that I have seen make no mention of this.
My book Treason of the Heart examines people who have taken up foreign causes. In almost all cases, they resent what they imagine are the vices of their own nation and find the virtues they seek in other peoples, other nations. These virtues usually involve righting a perceived injustice, eliminating a regime, claiming territory, anyhow a struggle that grabs the heart and mind. Kill or be killed is the customary end of this story.
The idealist as victim of mistaken ideals is the theme of the greatest drama from the classical Greeks to Shakespeare and Racine. Rachel Corrie took up the cause of the Palestinians and was crushed to death in an accident in Gaza. Vittorio Arrigoni also took up the Palestinian cause, was held hostage in Gaza and strangled there by Palestinians. Ambassador Christopher Stevens took up the general cause of the Arabs, and was lynched by ungrateful Arabs. Now James Foley.