Some Call It 'Counterinsurgency'

So an insurgent by definition is trying to overthrow a government, usually his own. Therefore if a population is resisting a foreign military occupation (or fighting other sects) they are not insurgents and it is not an insurgency. Is this just semantics? No. The point is that it is a natural human reaction to resist by force an alien foreign military occupation, whereas people are inclined to be more tolerant of their own government, before they take up arms, no matter how badly they act. Understanding this simple fact explains why the US has not been and will not be successful in its military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

There are about 190 sovereign nations and the U.S. has troops in more than 130 of them. It's not our job to police the world but that's what we're trying to do.