You've got to be kidding me. Osama decided to travel to Afghanistan in response to the Soviet invasion, alongside many other determined Muslims fighting to halt the Soviet advance. There, he helped finance and organize the Muslim volunteers, occassionally participating in the actual warfare himself. Before Osama traveled to Afghanistan, the incumbemt pro-Soviet government of Afghanistan was the biggest target of the Mujuahideens. The Afghan government seeked Soviet assistance in crushing the insurgency, which resulted in the Soviet-led invasion of Afghanistan, leading to a subsequent rise in the numbers of Muslim fighters in the region, flooding in from various countries.
Muhammad Daoud, the progressive President of Afghanistan during the '70s, earned the brunt of the Soviets for cutting personal relations between the two countries, and for signing a military treaty with Egypt. Fearing Afghanistan's continuous distancing from the Soviet Union, the KGB organized and funded numerous raids and coups, executed by Soviet loyals in Afghanistan. Eventually, Dauod was assassinated, and a pro-Soviet government took its place. In a nutshell, many Muslims felt the Soviet intervention as a hostile act, and didn't feel as if a government which pandered to unIslamic neighbours was worthy of power. Essentially, the Soviet occupation was so brutal that Muslims from all over the world flooded the region to participate in the battle for independence. The rest, as we know it, is history.
I'm still a little surprised as to how you sugar-coated the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Sure, they were not as heinous and resource-seeking as the Americans today, but they weren't much better by any stretch of the imagination.
