Brief history: Terrorists attacked New York City and destroyed the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. This was huge and it completely shocked the
whole country. It really felt like a sucker punch.

A bunch of laws were implemented in the US to take away people's freedoms in exchange for security. For example this is when the TSA was created and you have to pose for a nude selfie to get into an airport, and if God forbid you have change in your pocket, you're wearing a metal belt buckle, or there's just a random scanner blip, a government employee will give you a search that would get any private business sued out of existence for sexual harassment. Also banks were required to ask a lot more intrusive questions to their customers, responses to potential terrorism and criminal penalties for terrorism related stuff were increased, all kinds of electronic government spying was increased -- sometimes illegally (including the stuff Snowden eventually revealed).

Soon after the attacks, the Al Qaeda terrorist group based in Afghanistan was determined to be responsible. The President told the government of Afghanistan to hand over Osama bin Laden, the leader of the terrorist group. The government of Afghanistan, called the Taliban, refused. The Taliban are religious fundamentalists; besides being responsible for the September 11 attacks, they're mainly famous for destroying irreplaceable historical temples over 1000 year old. So the US invaded and got rid of the Taliban government. After the invasion, the US briefly set up an occupation government, but then set up free and fair elections. Unfortunately the Afghans elected a corrupt and ineffective government, who ended up stealing most of the money the US put into rebuilding the country.

It took the US a really long time to capture Osama bin Laden. Even after bin Laden was captured, the Afghan government still didn't get its feet, it was constantly unstable, corrupt, untrusted by the people and reliant on US military backing. So the US military decided to stay until they could be sure Afgahnistan was stable collapse as soon as it left. Unfortunately Afghanistan never got that stable.

The Taliban fought with tactics like roadside bombs, car bombs, and child suicide bombers. Which led to a lot of psychological wear and tear on the US soldiers; a number of returning soldiers had mental issues or committed suicide. For example if a car looks like it's not going to stop for a checkpoint, or a child is running up to a group of soldiers, the soldiers have to assume it's a bomb and shoot to protect themselves, but 9 times out of 10 it was just an innocent civilian.

Eventually Trump decided to rip the band-aid by negotiating an exit date with the Taliban, to actually occur during Biden's first term, so Biden could be blamed if it went poorly. Which it did; the Taliban, being terrorists, ignored the peace agreement and attacked. The Afghan army quickly collapsed and the elected Afghan president disgracefully fled the country in the middle of dinner.

Now the Taliban are in charge. The Taliban won't quit with religious extremism like shooting women and girls if they don't want to wear a burka, or try to get an education beyond fourth grade.

The people of Afghanistan are starving because the Afghan economy completely collapsed because foreign companies don't want to work or invest in Afghanistan due to the violence and religious fundamentalism of the Taliban regime. We tried our best to help during our years in Afghanistan. The Afghan people responded by electing a corrupt government, stealing the money that was supposed to help them, running away instead of fighting, and supporting the Taliban despite their barbarity and terrorism. The Afghan people are starving, which is sad, but it's not our problem any more. The Taliban wanted to be in charge; now they're in charge, and this is their problem now.

Calling the US war in Afghanistan a war of aggression is absurd. Afghanistan sent in terrorists to hijack planes in a suicide attack that successfully destroyed two skyscrapers and killed thousands of random civilians. Another hijacked plane flew into the Pentagon, which was also severely damaged. September 11, 2001 was an act of war, pure and simple.

A bunch of really weird stuff came out of the war. For example, Osama bin Laden's been dead for a decade, we're out of Afghanistan, and nobody's launched a successful major terrorist attack on the US since 2001. But for some reason, no politician of either party is willing to even bring up the possibility of disbanding the TSA, rolling back the 2001 era regulations, and giving us our freedom back. This is kind of a sore subject with me.

There's also the story of Guantanamo Bay. For some weird reason, even though the US and Cuba hate each other, the US owns a tiny part of Cuba and has a military base there. Since it's owned by the US government and not on US soil, some terrorists were sent there. The US court system ruled that they're somehow outside the reach of US law and the Constitution there, and the US government is legally allowed to use torture and detain people indefinitely without charges there. A lot of people (in my view, correctly) claim the government shouldn't legally be allowed to do that, and even if it's somehow legal, it's still morally wrong and unethical to do it. And even if the government did it anyway in the past, in the present/future they should stop, close the prison, and either charge or release the prisoners. US intelligence claims the detainees are bad, bad people who would launch September 11 style attacks, but due to the exigencies of war they can't get enough evidence to convict them with normal legal procedure. Obama promised to close Guantanamo Bay but he didn't, and AFAIK there are still prisoners there to this day.

Iraq is a different story, but this post is already long and ranty enough.