As a journalist, I do worry about the fate of fellow journalists,  but  to  honor  those  journalists, we  need to  follow  the  facts. First, to be coherent, one needs to know something about Iran and Islam.

One thing about Islam is that like Christianity, it had splintered into different groups.

Sunnah (“a well-trodden path”) was used by pre-Islamic Arabs to denote their tribal or common law. In Islam it came to mean the example of the Prophet—i.e., his words and deeds as recorded in compilations known as Hadith (in Arabic, Ḥadīth: literally, “report”; a collection of sayings attributed to the Prophet). Hadith provide the written documentation of the Prophet’s words and deeds. Six of these collections, compiled in the 3rd century AH (9th century CE), came to be regarded as especially authoritative by the largest group in Islam, the Sunnis. Another large group, the Shiʿah, has its own Hadith contained in four canonical collections.

Here is another difference between the Sunni and Shi’ism (also Shiite or Shi’ah).

Ijtihād, meaning “to endeavor” or “to exert effort,” was required to find the legal or doctrinal solution to a new problem. In the early period of Islam, because ijtihād took the form of individual opinion (raʾy), there was a wealth of conflicting and chaotic opinions. In the 2nd century AH ijtihād was replaced by qiyās (reasoning by strict analogy), a formal procedure of deduction based on the texts of the Qurʾān and the Hadith. The transformation of ijmāʿ into a conservative mechanism and the acceptance of a definitive body of Hadith virtually closed the “gate of ijtihād” in Sunni Islam while ijtihād continued in Shiʿism. Nevertheless, certain outstanding Muslim thinkers (e.g., al-Ghazālī in the 11th–12th century) continued to claim the right of new ijtihād for themselves, and reformers in the 18th–20th centuries, because of modern influences, caused this principle once more to receive wider acceptance.

Then is is important that one knows the religious demographics of both Iraq and Iran. While Iraq is 97% Muslim, that can be further divided into 55 to 60% Shia Muslim and 40% Sunni Muslim. Iran is about 95% Muslim, but that is about 90% Shi’a Muslim and only 5% Sunni Muslim.

James Foley (18 October 1973 – c. 19 August 2014)

James Foley was kidnapped in Syria in 2012. He was killed by the Islamic State, meaning ISIS or ISIL. At the time, according to the Foley Foundation, he was reporting for Global Post of Boston and Agence France Press. On August 19, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria posted a video on Twitter (now X) depicting Jim’s brutal beheading because he was an American journalist.

Steven Sotloff (11 May 1983–2 September 2015). 

Steven Sotloff was kidnapped in Aleppo, Syria in August 2013. He was help captive by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Sotloff, according to the Foley Foundation was both Jewish and Israeli American. Most of his pieces were published under a pseudonym. He was beheaded on international TV.

Barack Obama was the president of the United States in 2014 (2009–2017). Obama did make a statement about the killing of Foley. (20 August 2014).

Jim Foley’s life stands in stark contrast to his killers.  Let’s be clear about ISIL.  They have rampaged across cities and villages — killing innocent, unarmed civilians in cowardly acts of violence.  They abduct women and children, and subject them to torture and rape and slavery.  They have murdered Muslims — both Sunni and Shia — by the thousands.  They target Christians and religious minorities, driving them from their homes, murdering them when they can for no other reason than they practice a different religion.  They declared their ambition to commit genocide against an ancient people.

So ISIL speaks for no religion.  Their victims are overwhelmingly Muslim, and no faith teaches people to massacre innocents.  No just God would stand for what they did yesterday, and for what they do every single day.  ISIL has no ideology of any value to human beings.  Their ideology is bankrupt.  They may claim out of expediency that they are at war with the United States or the West, but the fact is they terrorize their neighbors and offer them nothing but an endless slavery to their empty vision, and the collapse of any definition of civilized behavior.

Obama also made a statement on the killing of Sotloff.

Finally, I want to say that today the prayers of the American people are with the family of a devoted and courageous journalist, Steven Sotloff. Overnight, our government determined that, tragically, Steven was taken from us in a horrific act of violence. We cannot even begin to imagine the agony that everyone who loved Steven is feeling right now, especially his mother, his father and his younger sister. So today, our country grieves with them.

Like Jim Foley before him, Steve’s life stood in sharp contrast to those who have murdered him so brutally. They make the absurd claim that they kill in the name of religion, but it was Steven, his friends say, who deeply loved the Islamic world. His killers try to claim that they defend the oppressed, but it was Steven who traveled across the Middle East, risking his life to tell the story of Muslim men and women demanding justice and dignity.

Whatever these murderers think they’ll achieve by killing innocent Americans like Steven, they have already failed. They have failed because, like people around the world, Americans are repulsed by their barbarism. We will not be intimidated. Their horrific acts only unite us as a country and stiffen our resolve to take the fight against these terrorists. And those who make the mistake of harming Americans will learn that we will not forget, and that our reach is long and that justice will be served.

Obama met with the Sotloff family.

Foley’s mother Diane Foley was critical of Obama’s policy. That is, however, a different issue.We are not talking about Obama’s policy toward political prisoners, hostages or journalists.

Peter Kassig (19 February 1988-16 November 2014).

Peter Kassig was not a journalist; he was a US aid worker. He was killed by ISIS or ISIL. When PBS reported on this, it also reported that:

PBS reported:

This week, The Wall Street Journal broke news that the Obama administration secretly airlifted $400 million in cash to Iran. The money was owed as part of a failed arms deal prior to the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But the payment coincided within the release of four Americans imprisoned in Tehran, raising questions about cash for prisoners.

For Iraq, Reuters reported that Obama sought monies for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is the person who is the source of the meme that I saw on FB. Is this person a reliable source?

First, the claim is that Iran released the videos. This is incorrect. According to the sources I have listed, the organization that released the videos was not Iran. It was the Islamic State or ISIS or ISIL. The Islamic State is characterized as being a “transnational Sunni Islamist insurgent and terrorist group.” Transnational means it is found in different countries. We know that Iran is predominately Shi’a Muslim (at least 90%).

Obama giving monies to Iran should not be conflated with giving monies to ISIL. The monies were owed to Iran according to The Wall Street Journal. The meme gives the impression that the person who posted it and the people who reposted it do not understand the distinction, and further, do not understand the difference between Iraq and Iran and Sunni and Shi’a.