The terror trap

Ever since 9/11, the world has been confronted by the paradox of terrorism.  The harder you try to stop it by means of force, the more you encourage new players to enter the game.  Of course, the poster child of this approach was the invasion of Iraq.  By killing tens of thousands of Iraqis and plunging that nation into turmoil, we helped spawn many Al Queada offshoots, leading eventually to ISIS which threatens our 2 trillion dollar investment in Iraq.  The European nations are not immune from the fallout either, as the attack on Charlie Hebdo proved.  This attack was probably the fruit of institutionalized racism in France toward the Muslim population.  Now Yemen is touted as another Afghanistan; a failed state where terrorist can train with impunity.  The talking heads decry the US strategy of targeted assasinations of terrorists by means of drone strikes, but also admit the Iraq strategy of putting "boots on the ground" is not viable.  What no one wants to talk about is the economic and social factors which create militants willing to die in large numbers.  When poverty and racism combine with religious tenets which encourage jihad the result is decades of conflict spreading around the world.  The solution, which will never be implemented is to attack the underlying causes of the violence.  If the young men who attacked in Paris had good jobs and felt like respected members of their community, they would have had no reason to acquire guns and make suicide their mission.