A Reuters article last Friday revealed that the U S Ambassador to Mexico is warning them that we may need to issue travel caution statements for Ciudad Juarez due to recent violence. D’ya think?
You know the warnings. They come from the State Department and go something like this: Due to conditions in (insert name of country) the United States cannot guarantee the safety of its citizens. Travel is strongly discouraged.
Of course, if things get really bad, the State Department can actually forbid travel to certain countries.
These warning are usually the result of political unrest, kidnapping of Americans, street violence, or attempted coups. Come to think of it, a warning about Mexico is long overdue. Tourism to Baja is way down already. People don’t need Washington to tell them to stay out of dangerous places.
Gangs are running wild, military forces are being sent to fight crime, politicians are being beheaded, anyone with money or power is subject to kidnapping…and to top it off, the police are famous as shake-down artists! What’s not to like about that?
Our President, a former border-state governor, must be spitting nails. I don’t think we have any idea of the number of daily border crossings (legal ones, I mean) at the El Paso/Juarez station. Huge numbers of business executives commute every day. Day trip shoppers (both directions) are common as well. The Bureau of Transportation Statistics says that in the first seven months of last year 14,129,184 passengers in private vehicles crossed the border at El Paso. THAT’S OVER TWO MILLION PEOPLE A MONTH!
So if Ambassador Garza sends an official warming that could be bad for Bush.
Of course, this might just be Washington fluff. People are staying away already…let’s give the problem an official explanation.
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