There is no excuse for the abuses at Abu Ghraib. The individual soldiers involved ought to feel ashamed, as should our military and our nation.

Maybe it's just me, but did I miss a similar storm of moral outrage from the Arab world over the pious Islamists who got out their video cameras to record the gruesome beheadings of Daniel Pearl and Nicholas Berg?

In a now infamous 1971 psychological experiment at Stanford University, in which one randomly selected group of students was permitted to play the role of "guards" over another group of "inmates," abuses began almost immediately, and at one point involved forcing inmates into sexually humiliating role-playing.

Some have claimed that "War is too important to be left to the generals," but what about the business executives?

Corporations now sell skills and services that until recently only state militaries possessed. Their products range from trained commando teams to strategic advice from generals.

Private corporations working for profit now sway the course of national and international conflict.

With the United States fighting protracted wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, its military faces a shortage of a basic necessity: ammunition.