Every decent person I know has reacted in horror to the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners in Al Ghraib prison near Baghdad. When the lewd photos emerged of American soldiers forcing prisoners to engage in sexual acts, and leading them around on leashes with hoods over their heads, and threatening them with electrocution, people were speechless and horrified.

We should be enraged and demand that those involved be severely punished. We must also remember that the vast majority of our brave soldiers are decent human beings who have been willing to sacrifice their very lives to secure freedom for others.

But should we be shocked that some Americans are capable of such barbaric behavior as depicted in the infamous photos?

Consider:

• Pornography is the No. 1 Internet industry ? No. 1. There are well over 300,000 Internet porn sites.

• American consumers spent an estimated $220 million at such fee-based "adult" sites in 2001, according to Jupiter Media Metrix, a New York Internet research firm. That was up from $148 million in 1999. Jupiter is projecting $320 million by 2005.

• A comprehensive 2-year study by Alexa Research, a leading Web intelligence and traffic-measurement service, has revealed "sex" was the most popular term for which people searched. According to their online searching habits, people want "sex" more than they want "games," "music," "travel," "jokes," "cars," "jobs," "weather" and "health" combined.

• A nationwide survey of 1,031 adults conducted by Zogby International and Focus on the Family on March 8-10, 2000, found that "20 percent of respondents ? which extrapolates to 40 million adults ? admitted visiting a sexually-oriented website. According to the Nielsen Net ratings, 17.5 million surfers visited porn sites from their homes in January of 2000 ? a 40 percent increase compared with September of 1999."

• Pornography websites earned $1.5 billion in 1999 and more than $2 billion in 2000.

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