I will first say I don’t agree the USA should have invaded anyone.

1) America has Europe by the balls because we provide most of the major military security guarantees.

2) Iraq wasn’t exactly a peaceful nation (see: Kuwait)

3) Both Iraq and Afghanistan were governed by non democratic governments; a dictator in one and by religious zealots in the other

4) No one other than the local middle eastern Arabic countries were threatened by this action by the USA, and they didn’t have enough power to put pressure on the USA

In Ukraine, Russia invaded a neighbor of NATO countries, Ukraine was actually a peaceful nation and has a democratically elected government, and the countries that don’t like Russia actually have the power to try to stop it and can get by without anything from Russia.

There was a great deal of international pushback against both. There was also international support for both. The United States didn't unilaterally invade either country.

Maybe that was evil too? I mean, there's complication. But "because America did it" is not a moral argument, and the contention was something about "evil".

> peaceful nations

Afghanistan was harboring al Qaeda and Iraq was threatening use of WMDs. They weren't peaceful nations.

The latter turned out to be bluster, supported by terrible intelligence and a U.S. administration that didn't have the wherewithal to counteract its own confirmation biases, and that deserves its own appropriate condemnation, but it's nowhere near the same thing.

Does anyone else notice that the above comment is greyed out but still showing up above two other comments ungreyed out? Maybe it’s just a glitch, first time I’ve seen it occur.

What's the flimsy pretext for the US going into Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks?

If the US were serious about going after the parties responsible, it would have invaded Saudi Arabia. Instead it made a token stab at Afghanistan then ginned up a war in Iraq they were intent on waging anyway.