Following are comments on the chapters by Dr. Mark W. Corson, Assistant Professor of Geography, Northwest Missouri State University, in MILITARY GEOGRAPHY: From Peace to War, Edited by Eugene J. Palka, Jr. and Francis A. Galgano, McGraw-Hill, March 2005:

In Corson's analytical regime, there is no systemic/compelling reason for preferring a "peace, love, groovy" outcome to military operations than a "rape, kill and pillage" one. Convention, custom, desire to appear a nice guy commend "peace, love, groovy" as Corson's preferred outcome, but nothing intrinsic to his analytical regime forces that preference. The scientific/reductionist assumptions and method of his work, unexamined for justifiability by him at least in these chapters, must degrade force security and mission accomplishment on the macro (theatre and war) scale if not also on the micro scale, though that would be more difficult to identify definitively.

The term "international community" is an object-less referrer. Its source is banal, wishful thinking. There is a multi-national community, a community comprised of nations. No entities exist between nations and independently of them to which they could be, much less are, answerable. Nor will there ever be.

The ultimate centered political self is the nation state and of these there are many and they are sovereign except as they subvert the structure of being and the conditions of life.

Religion is not a cultural phenomenon. It is its own phenomenon, relating with culture but unique in itself and as self-creative, self-integrating and self-transcending as culture is. Religion, and its articulation, theology, is a variable in every situation and should therefore be a factor in every inquiry and policy decision.

Furthermore, another variable is in every situation relating with both religion and culture, a unique phenomenon in itself, and that is morality. Morality also is a factor in every inquiry and policy decision. Religion, culture and morality are the three functions of the dimension of spirit which human beings alone actualize and enact.

(The dimensions of life, which is a multi-dimensional unity, include: the inorganic, the organic, the psychic, the spiritual and the historical. The word spiritual is spelled with a small "s" to distinguish it, as a dimension of life, from Spirit, the power of being, the source and goal of life.)

Muslim is not an ethnicity, as Corson at one point implies and treats of it. Neither is it a cultural phenomenon, as at another point he implies and treats of it. Islam is a religious phenomenon, not a cultural phenomenon, although it relates phenomenologically with culture.

Were there in use an analytical tool called theological geography we would see OEF/OIF and GWOT/GWAAP as targeting heretics and psycho-sociopaths (both terms used in their technical sense) and having nothing to do with Islam or Christianity except to safeguard both religions from heretics and psycho-sociopaths lodged deliberately in their midst.

For the safety and success of our Armed Forces and that of civilians located near military operations, theological geography should be a regular element of every analytical regime and policy decision.

Using theological geography, we would find heretics of two main kinds, violent and apparently non-violent and both hegemonistic. These operate in both Christian and Muslim orbits, aiming to subvert religion and represent the religion they are subverting.

We would find also psycho-sociopaths, again in both Christian and Muslim orbits, whose joy in life is to fatally disrupt it.

We would not find Islam or Christianity, or any other religion, causing any problems any where any time. We would indeed encourage every religion as a restorative, health-giving inducement to cultural, economic, political and environmental prosperity.

Even anti-Christian thinkers of the English Enlightenment, such as Locke and Jefferson, regarded “religion” and churches necessary for those effects they have or can have in personal and social economy.  Of course by “religion” they denote moralism, which is neither religious nor religion.  Norman Vincent Peale and Dale Carnegie followed Locke and especially Jefferson in promoting religion as moralism.

It is the nature of religion, culture and morality to actualize desirable outcomes of human creativity in the dimension of spirit because they have structural stability as functions of the dimension of spirit and therefore they have compelling analytical force.

Theological geography identifies the categorical reasons for preferring good to evil and having confidence in the power of being and the good to prevail against resistance or opposition. By reminding investigators and leaders of these realities, theological geography conduces to force security and mission fulfillment and helps achieve the ultimate goal of political and economic expansion.

Theological geography shows that the basis for confidence is the essential unity of purpose of all religions. Methods and modes of piety, symbols and concepts differ widely among the religions. But the purpose of each is exactly the same as the purpose of all the others: it is to lead the way home to reunion with one's essential nature, to experience, if only preliminarily and fragmentarily, unambiguous life in God with God. The Christian symbol for the experience of unambiguous life is Eternal Life.

The desire for unambiguous life -- to return to God  in union with one’s self, God and the world -- is the most powerful driver in man. It is structural, inalienable and therefore a compelling analytical variable. In philosophy it is called an ontological given. Our "analytical tool kits" should recognize this phenomenon by engaging the discipline of theological geography as a contributor in the discipline of geography.