You’ve probably noticed in recent months the proliferation of the media narrative that Mexican organized crime violence has spread across the border into the USA. Uninformed and/or demagogic politicians, as seems to be the style these days, have initiated and proliferated a narrative which lap dog media outlets report uncritically as fact, and whose reports the politicians then utilize to support their erroneous contentions. It’s the standard politician/media circle jerk, if I might utilize such an analogy.

Now comes The Arizona Republic to inform us that the narrative is complete BS, and that “Violence is not up on Arizona border”. Nor is it up in Texas border cities.

A few excerpts.

NOGALES, Ariz. – Assistant Police Chief Roy Bermudez shakes his head and smiles when he hears politicians and pundits declaring that Mexican cartel violence is overrunning his Arizona border town.

“We have not, thank God, witnessed any spillover violence from Mexico,” Bermudez says emphatically. “You can look at the crime stats. I think Nogales, Arizona, is one of the safest places to live in all of America.”

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FBI Uniform Crime Reports and statistics provided by police agencies, in fact, show that the crime rates in Nogales, Douglas, Yuma and other Arizona border towns have remained essentially flat for the past decade, even as drug-related violence has spiraled out of control on the other side of the international line. Statewide, rates of violent crime also are down.

While smugglers have become more aggressive in their encounters with authorities, as evidenced by the shooting of a Pinal County deputy on Friday, allegedly by illegal-immigrant drug runners, they do not routinely target residents of border towns.

In 2000, there were 23 rapes, robberies and murders in Nogales, Ariz. Last year, despite nearly a decade of population growth, there were 19 such crimes. Aggravated assaults dropped by one-third. No one has been murdered in two years.

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In 2000, there were 23 rapes, robberies and murders in Nogales, Ariz. Last year, despite nearly a decade of population growth, there were 19 such crimes. Aggravated assaults dropped by one-third. No one has been murdered in two years.

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Cochise County’s crime rate has been “flat” for at least 10 years, the sheriff added. Even in 2000, when record numbers of undocumented immigrants were detained in the area, just 4 percent of the area’s violent crimes were committed by illegal aliens.

Tucson Police Chief Roberto Villasenor said his town suffers from home invasions and kidnappings involving marijuana smugglers who are undoubtedly tied to Mexican organizations. However, he added, most of those committing the rip-offs are American citizens.

“I think the border-influenced violence is getting worse,” Villasenor said. “But is it a spillover of Mexican cartel members? No, I don’t buy that.”

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While the nation’s illegal-immigrant population doubled from 1994 to 2004, according to federal records, the violent-crime rate declined 35 percent.

More recently, Arizona’s violent-crime rate dropped from 512 incidents per 100,000 residents in 2005 to 447 incidents in 2008, the most recent year for which data is available.

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Aguilar said that Juarez, Mexico, is widely regarded as the “deadliest city in the world” because of an estimated 5,000 murders in recent years. Yet right across the border, El Paso, Texas, is listed among the safest towns in America.

A review of the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports suggests that Arizona’s border towns share El Paso’s good fortune. Douglas and Nogales are about the same size as Florence but have significantly lower violent-crime rates. Likewise, Yuma has a population greater than Avondale’s but a lower rate of violent offenses.

In Nogales, Ariz., residents seem bemused and annoyed by their town’s perilous reputation. Yes, they sometimes hear the gunfire across the border. No, they don’t feel safe visiting the sister city across the line. But with cops and federal agents everywhere, they see no danger on their streets.

“There’s no violence here,” said Francisco Hernandez, 31, who works in a sign shop and lives on a ranch along the border. “It doesn’t drain over, like people are saying.”

Leo Federico, 61, a retired teacher, said he has been amazed to hear members of Congress call for National Guard troops in the area.

“That’s politics,” he said, shrugging. “It’s all about votes. . . . We have plenty of law enforcement.”

Almost all the dead are poor people, not drug-enriched grandees. And though we give Mexico half a billion dollars a year to encourage its army to fight drug merchants, this alleged war has a curious feature: Almost no soldiers ever die. For example, in Juarez, over 4,200 citizens have been slain in two years. In the same period, with 7,000 to 10,000 soldiers in town, the military has suffered three dead.

Charles Bowden, High Country News

My neighbor’s eyes are soft and welcoming, easing my tension as I stumble my way through our conversation about desert plants and gardening in my broken Spanish. Danny and I have shared a lot of time together, talking mostly about plants, teaching each other their corresponding Spanish or English names. Danny comes from Mexico City, a tropical region, and he knows a lot about gardening; but within the constraints of a brutal city he has had little opportunity to enjoy his love for nature. He along with his brothers and their families migrated to the border on the wings of hope and opportunity. They built their houses together on dreams of a better life for their families, eleven people living stuffed together in a tiny cinderblock house doing all that they can to help each other succeed. Instead of freedom and a better life they have found themselves surrounded by relentless tension and difficulty. These are outstanding people who have welcomed us, two gringos, into their neighborhood with open arms.

I tell this story as a parallel to the two Americans that died a couple of weeks ago in Juarez. We have seen their stories plastered all over the news, we have shifted in our chairs and taken comfort in our resolve to stay as far away as possible, convinced that we would be the target of the next strategic bullet. But it is families like Danny’s that carry the real weight of the war. It is the poor people of the world, the voiceless and powerless, that always carry the weight and residue of the affluent. Yes, two Americans tragically died that weekend, and so did at least thirty Mexicans, thirty more to add to the nearly 5,000 in the past three years. This is Juarez: Real people. Real families. Real struggles.

Charles Bowden, arguably the leading journalist and researcher on this heinous war, says that, “few discussions about the border come from facts. Most discussions of the border come from fears. We seem to prefer slogans and fantasies: free trade, ‘just say no’,'gigantic walls’.”

It is no fantasy that well over 17,000 people in Mexico have died since Felipe Calderon took office just over three years ago, or that in Juarez alone 5,000 people have been intentionally slaughtered. The easy thing to do is shake our heads in amazement and then change the channel. And while we sit comfortably in our easy chairs over 1,000,000 of our poor brothers and sisters in Juarez shut themselves behind their stick and cardboard fences and kneel on their dirt floors praying that the bullets do not pass by too closely to their baby’s head. In a city of 1.4 million, over 100,000 people have lost their jobs at U.S. owned factories. These are jobs that pay just $5-$7 a day, not even coming close to easing the burden of living in a third world country. 27% of the homes in Juarez are now abandoned. Over 10,000 business have closed and some 30-60 thousand people, the few that are able, have taken shelter in El Paso. The mayor of Juarez and the publisher of the local newspaper live in El Paso in fear of their lives. 100-400 thousand have fled Juarez for other parts of Mexico, and yet over 1,000,000 people are too poor to do anything about their situation, and their children, making disastrous choices in a crumbled society, keep dying.

The facts do not stop here. Thanks to folks like Bowden, Diana Washington Valdez and others, the deceptive veil of political ramble is being torn and the hideous truth is being revealed.

17,000 + dead in Mexico and 5,000 in our city. More U.S. guns is not the answer.

We have hesitated in the past to post a bunch of statistics about the War Next Door. We don’t want to give people another reason to run away from the border, or incite a spirit of fear over our lives and work. We believe strongly in layering all that we do and say about Juarez with words of hope, but what Mexico is currently reaping directly and absolutely affects all of our lives, whether we believe it now or realize it later. I write this because the longer we disregard them as they stand in the midst of their pain, the uglier this war will become.

Listen to Charles Bowden’s recent NPR interview here.

I just ran across this post on AOL Travel by Anne Johnson. It is a must read for anyone planning to travel to Mexico or to calm fears of friends who think you shouldn’t visit!

Drug-related violence in cities south of the United States-Mexico border has caused the U.S. State Department to issue a travel warning for Mexico — but did you know most of Mexico is as safe as ever? Read More…