Driving into Tijuana, Mexico is really not a good idea.  In fact, walking into Tijuana isn’t a good idea either.  Why?  There have been too many visitors killed or robbed there.  There have been reports that many visitors to San Diego are still visiting the Mexican border city.  I have both driven and walked into that city across from San Diego.  Two men were killed by a gunman who opened fire while they waited in line, in their pickup truck, to reach the Tijuana border crossing at San Ysidro. The vehicle wait is usually 30 to 45 minutes.  They were U.S. citizens who moved to the Mexican border city where they could afford to live on the beach.

The Associated Press report:

In the first six months of 2010, the latest State Department figures available, 49 Americans were victims of homicide in Mexico, up from 37 for the same period in 2009 and 19 in the first half of 2008.

The majority of the slayings happened in border cities such as Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana, which have also been the hardest hit by drug violence. In some cases, the Americans apparently were in the company of Mexican friends, relatives or acquaintances who were the targets.

Forbes magazine now lists Mexico’s Carlos Slim as the wealthiest man in the world. His wealth is estimated at $74 Billion. Poor Bill Gates has a mere $56 Billion and Warren Buffet is at $50 Billion.

According to Forbes, Slim’s wealth grew by $20.5 Billion last year. The Associated Press reports “Mexico has such a highly concentrated economy — in which one or two firms control a sector such as cement, tortillas, beer or television programming.”

“It is like watching a battle between Godzilla and King Kong,” said Daniel Gershenson, a founder of the consumer advocacy group Alconsumidor. “The truth is that we consumers can’t find a good guy in this battle. We hope they both lose.”

The Associated press reports that Slim built his fortune in a country where most people — 59.5 percent — are paid $15 a day or less, and 38.7 percent get $10 or less.

Meanwhile the United States has received an estimated at least 12 million illegal aliens from Mexico thus relieving their population of poor uneducated people. Mr. Slim and his compatriots couldn’t be happier.

This report from the Associated Press supports my contention that travel to Mexico is not safe. See “Mexico Vacation Awareness What the travel industry doesn’t want you to know” on Blogroll to the right.

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Some cruise ship companies are canceling stops in the Mexican Pacific port of Mazatlan and others are considering it due to crime against tourists.

Disney Wonder has dropped calls to Mazatlan from its seven-night Mexican Riviera tour and replaced them with an additional stop in Cabo San Lucas on the Baja California peninsula.

“Safety is very important to us and we believe this change is necessary to provide the best family vacation experience for our guests,” Company spokeswoman Christi Erwin Donnan said in an e-mail Wednesday.

Read the rest of this report here.

It’s a beautiful city.  The beaches are a pristine white.  The water in the bay is so warm you will think your mother has just drawn a bath for you.  It’s all a lure that could result in your harm or perhaps your death.

Police found the bodies of 15 slain men, 14 of them headless, on a street outside a shopping center in the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco on Saturday.  The bodies were found in an area not frequented by tourists.  This is part of an AP report.

Is it worth taking a chance?

FALCON LAKE, Texas (AP) — Despite a bloody drug war raging just across the border, some Americans living near Mexico act as if it’s still a backyard playground.

In the last two weeks alone, two American tourists have been killed in Mexico in vicious attacks — one while riding a Jet Ski and another when his bus was hijacked. And a Mexican police commander investigating one of those deaths was killed this week, his severed head delivered in a suitcase to a local Army post.

But Texas officials keep encouraging boaters to enjoy the bass fishing on a border lake. And Gov. Rick Perry has not urged people to take any special precautions.

Tiffany and David Hartley decided to take Jet Skis across Falcon Lake, which is divided by the border, to photograph a historic church. They were on their way home when pirates opened fire, killing David Hartley, according to his wife.

Just days later, a student from the University of Texas-Brownsville was shot and killed in Mexico. Jonathan William Torres, 19, was one of two people killed when his bus was hijacked in Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville.

The State Department has issued repeated travel warnings to Americans traveling to or living in Mexico, with a particular focus on the area just south of the border. The warnings say that kidnappings are occurring at “alarming rates” with U.S. citizens often the target.

See the link to Mexico Vacation Awareness on the right of this screen.

Sometimes we strike out at others without complete forethought.  President Calderon of Mexico has done just that.  His country is in turmoil and he is looking for someone to take the blame.  The United States is an easy target.  In a television interview reported by the AP Calderon said the migrant massacre doesn’t undermine Mexico’s moral authority to demand better treatment for its own migrants.

“Of course we have the moral authority, because Mexican officials are not shooting Central American youths at the border, but U.S. agents are shooting Mexican migrants. If we are talking about responsibility, at the root of this, in the case of immigration, is the lack of immigration legislation in the United States that would recognize this phenomenon.”

President Mauricio Funes of El Salvador said during his joint appearance with Calderon that the home nations of migrants bear some of the responsibility for immigration problems.

“In part, the greatest responsibility lies with our governments, the Salvadoran government, for not having generated the employment conditions, the welfare conditions, that doesn’t leave our migrants any choice but to look for other opportunities in the United States and Canada.”

As this blame America news conference is occurring Wall Street Journal’s David Luhnow reports from Monterrey, Mexico in a headline that reads Elite Flee Drug War in Mexico’s No. 3 City:

In the past two weeks, U.S. farm equipment maker Caterpillar Inc. ordered executives with children to leave the city, following a similar move by the U.S. State Department for American diplomats here. Other U.S. firms are allowing employees to leave voluntarily.

“Based on recent guidance from the State Department, Caterpillar has informed expat employees in some regions of Mexico (including Monterrey) that they and their families should repatriate as soon as possible,” Jim Dugan, Caterpillar’s chief spokesman, said in an email to The Wall Street Journal. The move affects about 40 employees, he said.

Despite President Obama’s diplomatic repudiation of Hilary Clinton’s comment “Mexico drug wars starting to look like insurgency”, the reality is becoming apparent.  We may not want to send American soldiers into Mexico but we may have no choice.

Gunmen stormed a party in the city of Torreon in northern Mexico.  It is a city of 1 million people west of Monterrey and about 282 miles or 453 kilometers from Laredo, Texas.  An estimated 17 people were killed and another 18 wounded.  The AP reports that the United States FBI has sent a small team to the crime scene to offer technical assistance to the Mexican investigators.  It is always nice to know that we will help our neighbors.

There is a report in today’s Los Angeles Times that Mexicans who are sneaking into the United States just east of Tijuana are being kidnapped by their countryman for ransom to be paid by the victim’s American relatives.

So the pattern is becoming apparent.  American law enforcement is being drawn into the gang wars in Mexico.

This is more evidence supporting Arizona’s new laws pertaining to illegal entry into their state.  My prediction is the United States will become ever more involved in the battle with all the Mexican gangs regardless of their purpose. Afghanistan will soon be a forgotten memory.