Fox News is reporting on their website today, July 22, 2010 in a large bold font headline that “State Department Restricts Diplomat Travel in Mexico, Warns U.S. Citizens”. That bit of news is followed by a warning to everyone to use "extreme caution" and that in an 8 page advisory released about a week ago “diplomats and their families” are told “that certain cross-border travel has been banned” altogether.
The piece on Fox’s website goes further, telling their readers that “The eight-page advisory released last week outlined a host of dangers for U.S. travelers and residents in Mexico -- firefights, carjackings, kidnappings and more. The State Department said that as of last Thursday, mission employees and their families for the most part are forbidden from driving across the U.S.-Mexico border en route to or from any post inside Mexico.
“The State Department said the restrictions were imposed out of concern for "road safety" along the border, where travelers have been targeted for robbery, "followed and harassed" and "caught in incidents of gunfire between criminals and Mexican law enforcement." The State Department said drug gangs are also setting up roadblocks to prevent the military and law enforcement from responding.”
The article goes on about U.S. Troops being deployed to the U.S. side of the border, the use of car bombs (of the IED variety used in Iraq and Afghanistan) and the folks of Fox (TV) news have had several segments recently telling their audience that the “terrorist” are joining forces with the Mexican Drug Lords in a further attempt to disrupt the U.S. Government...
The State Department warning and ban also includes, for the first time, our neighbor city of Nogales and it may likely take but one more ‘event’ in Peñasco before we, too, are put on the ‘ban’ list. But without that ever happening the simple truth of the matter is that U.S citizens are hearing this news all too often (on Fox, CNN and elsewhere) and are scratching the Northern section (if not all) of this great Nation off of their 'to-do’ vacation, holiday-merry making and retirement lists.
Sadly, the U.S. demand for drugs will not decrease nor will the miserably failed U.S. led four-decade-old global ‘War On Drugs’. The Drug Lords will continue to gain wealth; many citizens on both sides of the border will continue to live in fear and it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Phoenicians and others begin to slowly and quietly unload their properties here at bargain basement prices, which will further affect the already fragile economy of Puerto Peñasco.
¡Viva Puerto Peñasco y México!
elgitanopenasco@gmail.com
