> history of tribal and religious warfare in the Middle East

Are you claiming that with no US involvement, Al Qaida would have received training and ammunition?

> This is even less true... <etc>

You are correct about the start of the wars, but keep in mind that cost estimates by GWB of the wars were a tiny fraction of what the cost turned out to be very quickly after the big statue of Saddam toppled. With every day that went by the gap between what was promised and what was delivered widened. This was the motive for concealing (through classification) information that would have made it obvious that the war had been sold on false pretenses and that it would turn out to be a much, much larger undertaking than anyone who supported it had been led to believe.

To some of your other points, if one assumes that the war will be effective and cost the lives of, say 1 US soldier and cost $1, then it would be a no brainer. When you increase the death toll, cost, blowback, or any other negative externality, the ROI changes and easily becomes negative. It was not just the post-9/11 hysteria that led to the war, it was the dramatic underestimation of the time, cost, outcome, and of course the utter falsehood of the nation building narrative.

> Al Qaeda was not, and never was, a proxy for Iran

I did not claim it was. Saddam was linked by the Bush administration to Al Qaida if you recall, and Iran had significant interest in what would happen with Iraq.

> Don't conflate one group of brown people with another

I have not done that, see above.

> I opened letters containing death threats targeting the candidates from budding alt-right idiots.

In a large population there will be extreme and largely incoherent views on both (all?) sides, and of course you would open some such letters. The letters have no connection to what the parties actually wanted/supported during that time.

> Obama intended to shift the war from Iraq to Afghanistan, McCain intended to continue the war in Iraq without moving into Afghanistan. Obama followed through--and was pilloried by the right for it until US special forces killed Osama.

The key word here is intended. Obama also intended to close Gitmo and stop some of the more egregious excesses of the Bush administration but actually did very little to remediate it, until just before he left office toward the end of his second term. Any Democrat would advocate a left of center position, any Republican a right of center position, both knowing that the centrist position was just fine and that the rhetoric would help win the election and nothing more. Obama's conduct in office is a case in point. Don't confuse the political fray and left vs right accusations with what is actually happening (or not happening).

> No, it was based on Assange's declared support for Donald Trump's presidency...

Assange stated that he found both candidates abhorrent, so I'm not sure how you can claim that he supported Donald Trump's candidacy. I think you are potentially getting some false information about Assange's sentiments about Trump. I followed his conduct closely during the 2016 campaign and while he did maximize the PR impact of the leaked emails, I view that as a budget PR strategy since he'd already had his organization decimated and needed to drum up some PR to get the material noticed by the rest of the press.

If you have followed Assange for a while you will know that he has no political interest in any nation -- he may have had a grudge against HRC after she joked about assassinating him, who knows -- but his conduct as a journalist is beyond reproach, especially considering the attack that he was under during most of it.

If, for example, the NY Times had continued working with him and providing support, the PR strategy would not have been necessary, nor would the hastily released (sub-optimally redacted) items have been released. But instead the NYT decided to act as an arm of the US Government and help spread the "Assange is a rapist" meme.

While I doubt Assange is a violent person, I don't know him personally. But I also care a lot less about his character around people he's sharing a bed with than I do about the information he revealed.