I'd argue that was a legal invasion. Invocation of article 5 was accepted by nato which lead to a declaration of war. Occupation, not done correctly. Plus the people we tried to install were not popular.

Except Afghanistan did not commit an armed attack against the US. So article 5 did not apply. Just because something is deemed legal, does mean it actually was.

There's this weird train of the thought that so long as you get a permit, you can just start bombing the shit out of people.

Give me the alternative scenario

We don't invade the graveyard of empires.

That's a known thing but what do we actually do? "Don't invade Afghanistan" is a cop out

It is not a cop out, you're attempting to restrict the parameters of the argument to such a narrow set of options that your worldview doesn't look grotesque and pathetic. It's not working.

Blowing 2 trillion dollars and killing a hundred thousand people because "you gotta do something".

You're conflating Iraq and Afghanistan

I am not.

The death toll and what is the and