Freedom is expensive


Thursday, August 25, 2011
More waiting, that’s all we did today.  Although the lady yesterday said that a response would take three weeks or less we are all hopeful that it will be less and that miraculously we receive a response almost immediately.  Clearly we all know that, that won’t happen but our hope keeps us in Juarez.  The day turns somber quickly as we turn on the news to hear of the morning death count in Juarez.  Two cab drivers were killed in the early morning hours; they were executed and left to die in their cabs.  It makes me sad and I wonder if our paths ever crossed while taking a cab ride.  Suddenly the news are buzzing there has been a tragedy in Monterrey (a neighboring state).  Someone set fire to a casino killing over 52 people including a pregnant woman.  The news and the cops are investigating and the president is delivering a speech about it.  One street over our hotel a man is being chased and he decides to hide inside a school.  The men chasing him care little if anything that he went inside a school and begin shooting.  Five people are killed and luckily no children are hurt.  Dad and I usually eat a super market down the street we are tired of hearing all the sad news and head out to get a bite to eat.  He decides that today he doesn’t want to eat at the supermarket and instead he wants to go across the street to a sea food restaurant.  We walk across the street, sit and order our meal.  While we eat we hear a loud boom but take little interest in what it could have been.  Suddenly the street is filled with police, military and ambulances.  Something must have happened close by because we can see the drama unfolding a few feet away but it’s far enough for us not to see what is happening.  We get back to the hotel and overhear guest commenting on being evacuated from the supermarket because there was an explosion across the street.     

Later on the news we hear that two junk yards near by were robbed.  Once the thieves found what they wanted they threw Molotov cocktails inside and lit the places on fire.  Dad and I looked at each other in amazement since this is the closest we have ever been to the Juarez violence.  We were supposed to be at that supermarket when dad changed his mind.  It’s still eerie to think we could have been so close to the event.  We hear more about the day’s events in Monterrey and hear how the event is tied to organize crime.  The owner of the casino did not pay the local gang or drug cartel and they felt the need to send a message, pay up or die.  Only rather than hurting the owners they hurt 52 innocent people.  The president is calling it an act of terrorism.  So much violence here and I still find it hard to accept that the U.S. doesn’t consider it a war zone.  When people can’t shop for groceries for fear of being bombed, when kids can’t go to school for fear of being shot and people can’t go out for some entertainment for fear of being burned alive isn’t that a country at war?  It is the drug cartels that are calling the shots, terrorizing people and keeping them at home in fear isn’t that what the Taliban did to its people?  Didn’t the U.S. go to war with practically all the Middle East for the terrorist attacks on 9/11?  I don’t want to compare but this country is at war with itself and there is no U.S. military stepping in to help.  As long as there is fear and uncertainty here the U.S. will always be supplied with cheap drugs and cheaper labor, so why mess with a good thing.  Freedom is not free and we must keep remembering that.     

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