It took the deaths of two American citizens and the husband of a diplomatic employee—all tied to the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez—for the Obama administration to apparently take notice of Mexico’s drug problem. Still, it seems that even the rhetoric from Washington will limit itself as much as it can to address this crisis as long as the bloodshed continues to hit outside of U.S. national borders.

On March 14all the headlines focused on the targeting of U.S. Consulate employees in the border town of Ciudad Juarez, which has become one of the main stages for drug-related violence in the recent years. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was quick to respond to these attacks in an unusual address on a topic that had been left off the agenda until recently.

It seems that as long as the victims of drug-related violence did not carry U.S. passports, the Obama administration only cared enough to issue petty warnings to American tourists not to visit our country. Yet when Enriquez, Redelffs and Salcido were gunned down President Barack Obama told the world he was outraged and promised a quick response to the issue. Clinton said that “this is a responsibility we must shoulder together" and subsequently made an official visit to Mexico 10 days later. There, she met with key officials in Calderón’s administration to work on a joint solution to the problem.

The first months of 2010 have shown, in multiple and unexpected ways, the courage, resilience, and solidarity of the citizens of the Americas.  Faced first with a devastating earthquake in Haiti on January 12, the countries and people of the region rallied around a neighbor that had suffered a terrible tragedy.  The outpouring of support and feeling was as broad and spontaneous as if any other of our nations had been directly hit by the earthquake.  Then, on February 27, Chile was struck with an earthquake of historic proportions just two weeks before Chilean citizens inaugurated a new President.  When the Secretary met with then-President Bachelet, and then-President-elect Piñera on March 2, she spoke for our entire country when she expressed profound sorrow at the tragedy and the tremendous respect and admiration for the way the Chilean nation responded.

In my blog on March 13, I wrote about Secretary Clinton’s six country trip to the region.  It was a great honor to accompany the Secretary.  With each leader and citizen we met, our deep and personal engagement with our neighbors in the region was apparent.  Given how much is at stake in the western hemisphere right now, I was pleased to have the opportunity to  testify before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere on March 10—and share  with Members  of Congress my perspectives on our relationships with countries of the region and what we want to accomplish together.

I talked about efforts by the United States and the international community to build back Haiti, including the Haiti donors’ conference coming up on at the end of this month at the United Nations.  This includes the ministerial-level International Donors’ Conference that the United States, in cooperation with the Haitian government, will co-host on March 31, 2010 in New York at UN headquarters.  The conference “Towards a New Future for Haiti” has been in the works essentially since the hours after the earthquake hit.  We all knew that building back Haiti better would require enormous and sustained support from partners around the world.  Over the last eight weeks since the quake struck Port-au-Prince, international relief efforts on the ground have been incredible.  In spite of this, it’s clear that we still have a long way to go to provide the Haitian people with the living conditions, economic, and educational opportunities they deserve.  The March 31 conference is just one step in mobilizing the broad international support that the government and people of Haiti must have in order to realize their vision of a stronger, vibrant Haiti emerging from this tragedy.

A good friend, who is a former foreign correspondent for the Associated Press, recently told me about the pressure he got from his editors during a recent reporting stint along the U.S.-Mexico border.  "They only wanted me to come up with the big story on the drug war, to find breaking news over and over again," he said.  "But nothing that big was happening in Tijuana; the action was in Ciudad Juárez instead."  

By "action," he was referring to the dozens of weekly reports of attacks, torture, murders, disappearances, and even what appears to be random violence in Juárez, directly across from El Paso, Texas—one of the safest cities in the United States.  Between March and September of this year, at least 40 people who received treatment for drug addiction at rehab facilities in Juárez were killed by gunmen; the reason why they were targeted remains unclear.  Last month, Juárez' murder rate became the highest in the world, surpassing that of Caracas and Rio de Janeiro.  

While it's incredibly important to denounce this violence and inform the public, the general reporting trend coming out of Mexico's drug war seems to be reaching its lowest point.  There is something sad and cold and detached to that "action" approach to journalism that frames the story as a way to generate readership and higher ratings.  Our quick turnaround news cycle and the current economic recession are driving reporters to deliver ever grimmer and bombastic news on the U.S. side of the border; on the Mexican side, the situation is different.