Actual border war could become the norm in 2025, in time for the Sicario 3 premiere.
DONALD TRUMP IS asking for a plan to wage war in Mexico, and the Republican Party is eager to give it to him.
As he campaigns for a second White House term, Trump has been asking policy advisers for a range of military options aimed at taking on Mexican drug cartels, including strikes that are not sanctioned by Mexico’s government, according to two sources familiar with the situation.
“‘Attacking Mexico,’ or whatever you’d like to call it, is something that President Trump has said he wants ‘battle plans’ drawn for,” says one of the sources. “He’s complained about missed opportunities of his first term, and there are a lot of people around him who want fewer missed opportunities in a second Trump presidency.”
Trump lieutenants have briefed him on several options that include unilateral military strikes and troop deployments on a sovereign U.S. partner and neighbor, the sources say. One such proposal that Trump has been briefed on this year is an October white paper from the Center for Renewing America, an increasingly influential think tank staffed largely by Trumpist wonks, MAGA loyalists, and veterans of his administration.
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(2021) With the coronavirus pandemic raging, Stephen Miller, the architect of Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda, had urged the Homeland Security Department to develop a plan for the number of troops that would be needed to seal the entire 2,000-mile border with Mexico. It is not clear whether it was officials in homeland security or the Pentagon who concluded that a quarter of a million troops would be required.
The concept was relayed to officials at the Defense Department’s Northern Command, which is responsible for all military operations in the United States and on its borders, according to several former senior administration officials. Officials said the idea was never presented formally to Mr. Trump for approval, but it was discussed in meetings at the White House as they debated other options for closing the border to illegal immigration.
Mr. Esper declined to comment. But people familiar with his conversations, who would speak about them only on condition of anonymity, said he was enraged by Mr. Miller’s plan. In addition, homeland security officials had bypassed his office by taking the idea directly to military officials at Northern Command. Mr. Esper also believed that deploying so many troops to the border would undermine American military readiness around the world, officials said.
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In the words of one U.S. cavalry officer, Columbus, New Mexico in 1916 was little more than “a cluster of adobe houses, a hotel, a few stores and streets knee deep in sand,” filled with cactus, mesquite and rattlesnakes. Only about 300 people lived in this desolate town three miles from the Mexican border, and if not for Camp Furlong, home to a 350-man detachment of the 13th U.S. Cavalry in Columbus’ southeast quadrant, the town would have little more significance than the desert that surrounded it.
Yet on March 9, 1916, the stillness of the desert night was shattered by a shout and gunfire. A sentry, Pvt. Fred Griffin, challenged several figures lurking in the pitch black near the 13th Cav’s headquarters. Griffin was answered by a rifle shot that hit him in the stomach, but managed to fire as he reeled backwards, killing his assailant and two other Mexicans before slumping to the ground and dying.
The legendary Mexican revolutionary and bandit Pancho Villa was leading 500 men in a cross-border raid on Columbus. Villa had spent two decades roaming Mexico’s Durango and Chihuahua provinces robbing and kidnapping, committing arson and murder. Yet he also carefully cultivated a Robin Hood image by donating a portion of his booty to the poor of northern Mexico, becoming a popular folk hero in the process. When the revolution against dictator Pofirio Diaz erupted in 1910, Villa took to the battlefield as a guerrilla, and by 1915 his “Division of the North” seemed invincible. Yet Villa left a trail of savagery notable even amid the vicious backdrop of the Mexican Revolution. He ordered the mass executions of hundreds of prisoners, and he oversaw the torture and slaughter of hundreds of ethnic Chinese in the towns he captured. Villa had a falling out with one of the political leaders of the revolution, Venustiano Carranza, and in October 1915, the United States officially recognized the Carranza government. The Wilson administration allowed the Carrancistas to cut through U.S. territory en route to defeating Villa’s forces at Agua Prieta, which led him to swear revenge on the United States and murder 17 American miners on a train in January 1916.
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The first Sicario film enjoyed both favorable reviews and success at the box office while landing three Academy Award nominations. The second installment was generally less favored among critics, though it certainly wasn't a commercial flop. The third project, which would complete what producers have called an "anthology trilogy," is still a go.
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The story would likely pick up from the Sicario 2 ending, which saw Alejandro (del Toro) survive a gunshot by young gang member Miguel (played by Elijah Rodriguez), who was forced to shoot him. The final scene takes place a year later, where the recovered Alejandro seemingly recruits Miguel, setting up a potential apprentice relationship in the next movie.
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The title Sicario: Capos, roughly translated in English as "bosses," could mean Matt and Alejandro will face the toughest drug kingpins they've dealt with yet.
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