■"Online and Even Near Home, New Front in the Terror Fight," by Eric Lipton and Eric Lichtblau, New York Times, 23 September 2004, p. A1.

Good piece about the real "fifth column" in this global war on terrorism: networks. Story starts by describing an Internet company nestled in bucolic Clifton NJ that unwittingly played host to an Arabic-language web site "where postings in recent weeks urged attacks against American and Israeli targets." Not only that, you could download instructions on kidnapping and how to use a cellphone to remotely detonate bombs.

The Revolution-in-Military-Affairs cum Transformation crowd in the Pentagon has long dreamed of a networked opponent against which we'd wage wars of great complexity. Well, that enemy has arrived, but it won't do us much good to put a cruise missile through the window of this building.