How to fight terrorism.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid is giving $10 billion to improve education in Dubai. The article observes that 'The whole Arab world publishes fewer books than the country of Turkey'. The Jihadi-Salafis are largely a product of young Arab men, facing bleak prospects with little education and endemic unemployment, seeing jihadism as a way of transcending their situation and, in their minds perhaps, doing something to redress the imbalance they perceive between the affluence of the west and the poverty and lack of accomplishments of the Arab world.

Education will go a long way toward dampening the smoldering embers that fuel terrorism. I would say that it is probably the most important ingredient in an effective anti-terrorism prescription, which, in my opinion, consists of:

1. Education for everyone, and not that rote memorization of verses that passes for education in Madrassis. Real education in fields that are demanded by business.
   
2. Frictionless commercial markets - make it trivial for someone to go into business, and eliminate red-tape, corruption and obstructive competition (such as monopolisim and patent-trolling). In the US, all I have to do is say "Shazzam! Flubco is now a business", and it is so. Once I actually succeed in selling more than $1000 worth of stuff, I have to obtain a tax license from the state, which requires all of 15 minutes and $16 for a two-year license. The developing world should optimize this process in their own markets. Ideally, developing nations should subsidize new businesses with tax breaks and other incentives.
   
3. Frictionless capital markets - make it easy for developing businesses to obtain capital and trade in their own equity. Also, make it possible for successful businesses to retain their earnings, rather than pay exorbitant taxes. The people who created this wealth in the first place are probably better positioned to employ these profits to create more wealth than the government who would confiscate these earnings 'for the public good'.
4. Invest in infrastructure - make it easy and affordable to exchange goods and services through transportation and communication networks that actually work.

If there were a way the US could apply this prescription to the current hotspots of terrorism, instead of blowing upwards of $1 trillion on military intervention, I suspect we'd see a much greater impact on terrorism. If nothing else, dear reader, you and I can help cultivate enterprise in developing areas by extending microloans through services such as Kiva. I suspect each developing entrepreneur who is given a leg up will result in 10-fold greater overall economic benefit, as the needs of their businesses ripple out into their economic community, possibly employing someone who might otherwise take up or at least endorse terrorism as a way of life.