Invasion USA. Circa 1985

Watched a campy (and violent) old Chuck Norris movie last night.

Invasion USA.

Plot was about an army of international terrorists infiltrating America, and wreaking havoc in urban and suburban neighborhoods across the county (though scenes in the movie appeared to be limited to South Florida and Atlanta).

Mall under attack in 1985's Invasion USA

I ordered the disc on NetFlix so we could pick out Atlanta landmarks used as scenes. My wife was a teen when it was filmed here; the mall scenes were shot at Avondale Mall (now the site of a Walmart) close to where she grew up.  The old downtown Atlanta Rich's building can be seen in the film, as well as the former downtown Davison's department store (Both Atlanta based chains were later acquired by Macy's).

Former WSB news anchor Monica Kaufman (later Pearson) plays a newscaster in the film.

There's also a scene with tanks in the streets not far from where The Walking Dead decades later staged a tank on Mitchell Street to introduce us to its Glen character.

But back to the Invasion USA plot.

When the attack began, suburban neighborhoods as well as urban settings were targeted. A church and a mall also caught the terrorists eye when selecting targets for bloodshed.  At least one of the attacks was done false-flag, with killers masquerading as cops to make their hit on a street party, touching off a riot.

Strikes me, there's a lesson here. Since 9/11, we've experienced isolated terrorist attacks in the U.S., but have been spared a wider, orchestrated surge.

In the movie, the terrorist army came ashore using World War II type landing craft. Today, we should realize a navy won't be necessary.

Open borders, even a government provided "refugee" airlift, can deliver potential terrorists to America's heartland in a wider, numerically superior manner that screen writers never imagined in 1985. Nor could screen writers then imagined the kind of command and control communications now available to potentially coordinate dastardly deeds in our present age of smartphones, Internet and social media.