Yemen and Pakistan demonstrate that pretty well. We've been bombing the hell out of terrorists there only to turn them into martyrs and breed distrust of the US to the point we'd started alienating our close allies in Europe. People don't trust you nearly as much if you're violent.
@the best: That's exactly the point. Obviously a disproportionate amount of terrorism is being done in the name of Islam today. But you don't resolve that issue by bringing up the Islam/foreigner part as soon as you can (a la Trump).
In 2006, the FBI decided to infiltrate a mosque (
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/fbi-plant-banned-by-mosque-ndash-because-he-was-too-extreme-2153057.html) and encourage terrorism to catch any potential terrorists. The mosque instead banned the guy for being an extremist. These people are
close to the extremists, capable of catching them, serving as our eyes and ears on the ground. If instead we start pointing to their Islamic identity as the problem, we alienate the best defense system we have.
One of the reasons we've historically been so successful has been our ability to realize we can turn our enemies into extremely useful allies- like Japan and Germany. Let's not make the mistake of letting this conflict become the West vs. Islam.
Edited 7/3/2016 22:48:25