This OP is written from the point of view of a citizen of the US and is directed at those who are, or claim to be, interested in alleviating the "clash of values" between Western secularism and the more radical strains of Islam and reducing the concomitant threat posed by jihadism.

I will start off by acknowledging that people are right when they say that western values (secularism, belief in equality of the sexes, etc.) are inherently at odds with fundamentalist Islamic values that often give rise to jihadism. This is self-evident. It is also true that many jihadists are not solely motivated by, or perhaps even mostly motivated by, terrestrial concerns. And they do indeed often tell us that this is the case while committing acts of terror. As far as I can tell, there are a number of ways of resolving this conflict, or at least the threat of jihadism, of varying degrees of plausibility that might be compatible with those truths. I will now present a few (although this is far from being an exhaustive list):

1) We could (presumably in an ethical way) kill or imprison enough jihadists and people that might become jihadists such that the problem would go away

2) We could push for a reformation of Islam so that less people become radicalized

3) We could wage an illegal drone war, organize coups against governments that oppose western hegemony, and invade and destabilize entire regions for reasons that most likely have little to do with eliminating terrorist threats while currently supporting a government perpetrating a genocide.

1) is of course ridiculous and intuitively unethical, and if one actually thinks that we could feasibly kill or imprison enough jihadists, or people that might become jihadists, to eliminate the threat radical Islam poses, they are wrong - barring committing incredible crimes against humanity. 2) seems to be the best way forward out of these three options, although it would undoubtedly take time and effort. And it does not preclude killing or imprisoning jihadists when necessary. 3) consists of following through on the prevailing middle east policy and hoping that in the process of blowing up anyone or anything that gets in the way (in Chomsky's words), the religious views of Muslims somehow change in a positive way in spite of that violence.

Anyone who takes the threat of terrorism seriously should balk at 3).

I expect that someone might say, or hold in their mind, that 3) (or whatever interpretation of the facts around US foreign policy that exists in one's head) is compatible with 2). I would say that the two probably don’t entail a logical contradiction, but so long as we assassinate entire families in the hopes of getting at targets that are suspected of maybe being a threat to something all the way across the world, or support Israel’s genocide, as a much more egregious example, we are stepping on the toes of any would-be reformers, as those kinds of things (unjustifiable crimes) are precisely that which might be used as fodder for the argument that a radical interpretation of scripture mixed with strong anti-west sentiment is correct.

I admit that the way forward is far more complicated than just committing to supporting reformers of Islam; for instance, I think that we have clearly been right to support certain scrappy, ideologically desirable groups, such as the secular, left-wing Kurdish militias that were instrumental in fighting IS, so they could effectively fight IS. But the main point here is that our current foreign policy makes little sense if we are committed to reducing jihadism and terrorism or alleviating the friction created by the clash of values.

All of that said, to frame the issue the way I have is itself indicative of a problem. Jihadism, at least in so far as terrorism is concerned, should be on the backburner compared to issues of the environment, potential nuclear destruction, the genocide in Gaza, Trump's incoming presidency, etc. But for some reason people allow themselves to be terrorized and absorbed by the mere thought of an attack every time one comes around. That is the intended effect. Don't let it do that to you.