In the most fundamental terms, free from the spin of any institutional or nationally promoted definitions of any of these terms, I think it is important to never lose sight of the fact that "Insurgency" - "Democracy" - "Tyranny" are all stops on the same line, separated only by ""Legality."

Democracy allows for legal, internal, populace-based, challenges to governance. When the legality of such effective challenge is denied to some part or whole of the affected populace one has illegal challenge. That is insurgency. When the incumbent acts illegally to stay in power one has tyranny.

So, even in the United States where we have a form of democracy, if a political challenger resorts to illegal means to attempt to gain office, it is insurgency. If an incumbent politician violates the law in an effort to stay in office it is tyranny. Sadly we often have a good bit of both.

These are not absolutes, where there can only be insurgency or democracy or tyranny - these conditions typically co-exist, separated by shades of grey and weighted based upon the dynamics of any particular point in time.

Now take that to Afghanistan: Democracy dedicated to the formal exclusion of the Taliban is Tryanny. Democracy that allows no legal vehicle to challenge the Northern Alliance-based GIRoA established by the US and NATO provokes insurgency. When we set out by design to create a "Democracy" that foments both Tyranny and Insurgency, it is not really democracy at all.

It is popular to believe one can resolve such things from "the bottom up." I have yet to see where that has been true, and frankly struggle to visualize how one could make it work. But certainly one can create these problems from "the top down" - after all, that is what we did in Afghanistan.