Alright. I’m gonna ask you to put on your big brain for a second. Are you ready?
Imagine an alternative history timeline where the U.S. (and its allies, you always forget U.S. allies) never invaded Afghanistan in 2001, and never invaded Iraq in 2003.
So, in this timeline without “American imperial aggression,” the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are left to run amok in Afghanistan, and the Kurd- and Shia-genociding Saddam Hussein is left in charge of Iraq.
Do you contend that these awful governments in Iraq and Afghanistan *wouldn’t* have inflicted terrible losses on their own populations? Wouldn’t have continued committing human rights abuses and genocides left and right? Wouldn’t have caused refugee crises of their own?
American-led invasions failed to establish peaceful democracies, but that doesn’t mean America broke the political order in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was already broken when America arrived.
Very similar things could be said about Libya and the NATO intervention in 2011 that toppled Gaddafi right after he promised to squash his own people like “cockroaches” (an unmistakable threat of genocide), etc.
Are you still with me?
Now — compare all that with Ukraine — which was a functional, human-rights respecting democracy before Putin’s goons arrived and started chopping it up.
Ukraine defended its own people. Ukrainian-speaking, Russian-speaking, foreign, and otherwise. That’s what healthy democracies do. They function.
Ukraine’s refugee crisis is entirely on Putin.