What happened to the root cause?

Today I stumbled upon an article by ex-prime minister Mahathir concerning values of leadership. No, this piece is not going to be about that article of his.

Back when Mahathir was the prime minister, he frequently spoke against US foreign policy and on terrorism, stressed on how it is more important to deal with the "root cause". You can't hunt down every single terrorist in the world, so to stop terrorism you have to deal with the root cause or causes. Taking military action is an action, but it isn't an action to deal with the root cause.

That was back then. Now, US foreign policy isn't any longer an issue. Everyone seems to be more concerned instead with safety on the streets, evidently because there seems to be more and more cases of child abductions. To deal with the problem, the police are to be more diligent and more surveillance cameras are to be installed in public areas. The general public are also asked to be more cautious and vigilant while on the streets and to keep the children safe.

But those are steps taken to deal with the prevailing situation. What happened to dealing with the root cause for a more effective solution?

But perhaps people have realized that it is impossible to deal with the root causes of our unsafe streets. How is one supposed to realistically deal with bad parenting or bad circumstances in life that led one to commit crime?

How then is one able to deal with the root causes of terrorism?

By giving the would-be terrorists an independent Palestinian state? Wouldn't this be like giving the would-be criminals a candy bar?

I thought the only thing in the article written by Mahathir worthy of some thought would be something along the lines of "some potential good leaders will never succeed just because circumstances don't favor them". I hope that he actually knows now how some root causes simply can't be dealt with, realistically.