A SIMPLE, NAÏVE APPEAL
To the Taliban, ISIS, Pentagon, Kremlin, and Everyone Else

By Guest Author Tom Greening, January 2016

Flag of Islamic State graffiti, St.-Romain-au-Mont-d’Or, Rhone-Alpes, France
Image by thierry ehrmann and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

•Please stop killing people and destroying things they need and treasure.

•Help us all work peaceably together to create good lives for everyone.

•That will take a lot of effort, creativity,
sacrifice, cooperation.

•We can, we must do it.

American soldiers display the Hoe battle flag during a patrol, Jan. 22. They hold the flag in reverse to symbolize the way Soldiers wear the flag on their right shoulder. Crow said the flag represents a ‘lineage of warriors.’ Image by Sgt. Aaron Rosencrans is in the public domain.

•The alternative is horrible, endlessly tragic.

•Let’s show each other and our children that we and they are not members of a monstrous species.

•Let’s prove that together we can transcend the past and create a humane and loving future for everyone.

•Let’s begin doing this now.

Nimroz provincial Gov. Mohammad Sarwar Subat, center, speaks during a friendship dinner at the Afghan Cultural Center at Camp Leatherneck in Helmand province, Afghanistan, July 25, 2013. Regional Command (Southwest) hosted the dinner during Ramadan to bring coalition forces and key members of the community together to promote peace and discussion. Image by Sgt Tammy Hineline and is in the public domain.

Tom Greening was educated at Yale, the University of Vienna, and the University of Michigan. He has been a psychologist in private practice for over 50 years, and is a retired professor from Saybrook University, UCLA, and Pepperdine. He was Editor of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology for 35 years. He is a Fellow of five divisions of the American Psychological Association and Poet Laureate of the International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry.