The US was an occupier of Afganistan. The US agreed to a withdrawal in exchange for a truce with the Taliban under the previous administration, which was honored by the next administration.
This is an invasion of a peaceful country by its neighbor. They are complete opposites.
I’m sure if you ask public servants in Afghanistan and Russia, they’ll both agree that they have the overwhelming support of the citizenry and any statements to the contrary are obviously lies.
Russia argues that it's defending the self determination of ethnic Russians in the Ukraine.
Maintaining the current borders does not advocate for self determination. War might not either, but the Ukraine isn't going to give up that land peacefully
First, it's not exactly clear that those ethnic Russian regions wish to be ruled by the Russian state. Second, Russia is in the midst of a full-blown invasion of all of Ukraine, and Putin has claimed that all Ukrainians are in fact Russians:
And were the Taliban, a democratically elected regime? Granted, they were (are?) less corrupt that the government that the US had installed, but they don't represent the interests of the people of Afghanistan, either.
Al-Queda attacked New York city unprovoked. Not an invasion and not defending US, just that it was not American expansionism that led to invasion of Afghanistan. US has no interest in imperialism.
> just that it was not American expansionism that led to invasion of Afghanistan
US presence, aka expansionism in the MENA region, was very much the declared motivator for AQ and OBL. Thus the demands were also to pull US troops out of these countries, those demands already existed before 9/11.
The US rather prefers to vassalize countries instead of straight up annexing as it used to, like with Hawaii or Texas.
Already got enough states trying to take care of and some territories existing in weird places, so I doubt there is much incentive to add even more of that, except maybe Cuba.
The End of History? Not so fast. Free people not having a good run here.