Meanwhile back in Pakistan...

Arrests in Germany this week point to Pakistan, rather than Iraq (again), as the main center of Al Qaeda training and planning. Three men, two German converts and a Turk, were arrested in Germany supposedly just before they launched a bomb attack on a US Air Force base in Ramstein, Germany. Check out the story here.

I think this will be good for Obama. He was recently dragged over the coals for suggesting that the US hunt for Al Qaeda leaders should not be overly concerned about the sovereignty claims of Pakistani leaders. His argument was that since we are pretty sure that Bin Ladin and other Al Qaeda big shots are in Pakistan, we should just go in a get them and stop letting the Pakistani government protect them.

Bush will also take this opportunity to crow about "the terrist threat" etc. He will of course not remind us that his argument in favor of the war in Iraq is that we are fighting them there so we don't have fight them here. Well, Germany's a long way from Iraq.

What do you all think?

PS: It's also worth noting, give our recent debate about the relevance of observed cultural differences, that two of the three arrested bomb plotters were ethnic German converts not Arabs. Granted, when dealing with individual actions it is best to rely on psychology rather than either political economy or anthropology.