The Russian-Afghanistan wars.

Looking back in history we see that it was December 24, 1979, Christmas Eve, when Russia began it's assault on the Islamist Mujahideen terrorists in Afghanistan. The Afghan government, having secured a treaty in December 1978 that allowed them to call on Soviet forces, repeatedly requested the introduction of troops in Afghanistan in the spring and summer of 1979. They requested Soviet troops to provide security and to assist in the fight against the mujahideen rebels.

In the mid-1980s, the Afghan resistance movement, assisted by the United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, the People's Republic of China and others, contributed to Moscow's high military costs and strained international relations. The US viewed the conflict in Afghanistan as an integral Cold War struggle, and the CIA provided assistance to anti-Soviet forces through the Pakistani intelligence services, in a program called Operation Cyclone. US President Jimmy Carter claimed that the Soviet incursion was "the most serious threat to peace since the Second World War."

The Afghan Islamists were funded and encouraged mainly by the United States and Saudi Arabia. A similar movement occurred in other Muslim countries, bringing contingents of so-called Afghan Arabs, foreign fighters who wished to wage jihad against the atheist communists. Notable among them was a young Saudi named Osama bin Laden, whose Arab group eventually evolved into al-Qaeda. This very same bin Ladin then began his campaign against the United States and is held responsible for the 911 attacks. In the aftermath of the Russina failure, Osama bin Laden asserted the credit for "the collapse of the Soviet Union ... goes to God and the mujahideen in Afghanistan  and the US had no mentionable role," but "collapse made the US more haughty and arrogant."

Does anyone see a pattern here? We have installed a puppet government and are hell bent on implementing a democratic form of government because that is what "we think" is best for the Afghans (another pattern maybe). Just consider the following; "thirty years ago we were supporting the same "anti-communist rebels" that today we are fighting and these rebels are using the same weapons we gave them back then."

Another case of the politicians deciding what is best. Shades of "de ja vue" all  over again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_in_Afghanistan