Ecstasy lab found on NATO grounds in Kingdom of Belgium. Suspects were arrested and released-spiegel

One report said suspects were released under “diplomatic immunity:” “Several people were arrested, then released under their diplomatic immunity."

6/28/22, “Ecstasy lab seized on Kleine-Brogel," Spiegel.de

[Image: Kingdom of Belgium, new NATO swimming pool, Assar Architects image]

“Air Force base in Belgium Authorities discover

secret ecstasy laboratory on NATO military base.

Not only nuclear warheads were stored at the Kleine Brogel military base in Limburg. The Belgian police have now also busted a drug laboratory.

……

Those arrested have been released. [One report said they were released due to “diplomatic immunity:” “Several people were arrested, then released under their diplomatic immunity."]

………..

Ecstasy was produced in a clandestine drug laboratory at a Belgian military base. 

……….

NATO nuclear weapons are also stored at the base.

According to the Limburg provincial prosecutor’s office, local police discovered the laboratory used to manufacture the synthetic drug at the Kleine Brogel base in northern Belgium last Wednesday; with the support of experts from the federal police, the criminological institute and civil protection, it was then excavated.

Two suspects were arrested but are now at large, a spokesman for the prosecutor said. Accordingly, the two were not in the service of the Belgian Ministry of Defense. [Belgian Defense Minister Ms. Ludivine Dedondere was appointed by King Philippe as are all Belgian Ministers].

[Image: Belgian Defense Minister takes oath to the King]

The spokesman left it open

whether investigations were being carried out against her.

The base is used not only by the Belgian Air Force

but also by the US Air Force.

In 2019, Belgian MP Samuel Cogolati from the Ecolo party reported that

“10 to 20” nuclear warheads were stored there for NATO.

According to the findings of the investigators, the province of Limburg, which borders the Netherlands,

is often used by criminals for drug depots and drug laboratories.”

………………………………………..

Added: “In Belgium, the King still plays a role in politics.”

Image: Belgian Royal Palace interior

“Before Ministers or Secretaries of State can start their task, they have to take an oath before His Majesty the King. The King also plays a role in the dismissal of the government.”

Oath to the King:

“I pledge allegiance to the king, obedience to the constitution and the laws of the Belgian people.”…

“The Executive Branch Of The Government Of Belgium”

“The chief of state in the country is the King. The king represents the Belgian identity, and he appoints the Prime Minister by taking the Parliament’s consent….

The cabinet is made up of the council

of ministers,

and they are appointed by the monarch.

The monarchy

is both hereditary and constitutional,

and after the parliamentary elections the king appoints the leader of the coalition as the Prime Minister and must be approved by the parliament….

“The Judiciary”

[King Philippe appoints judges for constitutional court and Supreme Court:]

“The highest court is the country is the constitutional court which has twelve judges; six are French speaking, and six are Dutch speaking. There is also the supreme court of justice which is organized into three chambers, and each chamber is a French division and a Dutch division, each having a chairperson and five or six member judges.

The monarch appoints the judges of the constitutional court from candidates presented by the parliament. The judges are appointed for life and a mandatory retirement age of 70 years.

The monarch also appoints the judges of the Supreme Court from the candidates presented by the High Council of Justice, an independent body of judicial and non-judicial members. The judges are also appointed for life.”…

“The Legislative Branch Of The Government Of Belgium”

The legislature of the Kingdom of Belgium is a bicameral parliamentary system made up of the Senate and the chamber of representatives. The Senate has 71 seats composed of 40 members elected directly by proportional representation vote and 31 indirectly elected by community parliaments, and they serve for a four-year term.”…

 

 

…………………………

Per NY Times, US taxpayer funded commandos and CIA boots are on Ukraine ground following UN backed US violent seizure of Ukraine in 2014-Caitlin Johnstone…(No one asked E. Ukraine if they wanted to be seized by US profiteers)

[With UN backing, US violently seized Ukraine in 2014. No one asked E. Ukraine if they wanted to be a US colony. Why should anyone agree to be seized and silenced by US profiteers?] 

6/27/22, “Caitlin Johnstone: Ukraine Crawling with CIA & Co,” Consortium News 

“The previously unthinkable idea that the U.S. is at war with Russia

has been gradually normalized,

with the heat turned up so slowly that

the frog doesn’t notice it’s being boiled alive.”

"The New York Times reports that Ukraine is crawling with special forces and spies from the U.S. and its allies,

which would seem to contradict earlier reports 

that the U.S. intelligence cartel is

having trouble getting intel about what’s happening on the ground in Ukraine.

This would also, obviously, put the final nail in the coffin of the claim

that this is not a U.S. proxy war.

In an article headlined

“Commando Network Coordinates Flow of Weapons in Ukraine, Officials Say,”

anonymous Western officials inform us of the following through their stenographers at The New York Times: [6/25/22, by Eric Schmitt, Julian E. Barnes, Helene Cooper]

“As Russian troops press ahead with a grinding campaign to seize eastern Ukraine, [after US violently seized it in 2014] the nation’s ability to resist the onslaught depends more than ever on help from [enslaved US taxpayers] the United States and its allies —

including a stealthy network of commandos and spies

rushing to provide weapons, intelligence and training, according to U.S. and European officials.

Much of this work happens outside Ukraine,

at bases in Germany, France and Britain, for example.

But even as the Biden administration has declared it will not deploy American troops to Ukraine, some C.I.A. personnel have continued to operate in the country secretly, mostly in the capital, Kyiv, directing much of the massive amounts of intelligence the United States is sharing with Ukrainian forces, according to current and former officials.

At the same time, a few dozen commandos from other NATO countries, including Britain, France, Canada and Lithuania,

also have been working inside Ukraine.”

(continuing): “The revelation that the C.I.A. and U.S. special forces are

conducting military operations in Ukraine does indeed make a lie of the Biden administration’s

insistence at the start of the war 

that there would be no American boots on the ground in Ukraine.

And the admission that NATO powers are so involved in operations against a nuclear superpower means, we are closer to seeing a nuclear exchange than anyone should be comfortable with.

This news should surprise no one who knows anything about the usual behavior of the U.S. intelligence cartel, but interestingly

it contradicts something we were told by the same New York Times

not three weeks ago.

“American intelligence agencies have less information than they would like about Ukraine’s operations

and possess a far better picture of Russia’s military, its planned operations and its successes and failures,”

The New York Times  told us earlier this month.

“U.S. officials said

the Ukrainian government gave them few classified briefings

or details about their operational plans,

and Ukrainian officials acknowledged that they

did not tell the Americans everything.”

It seems a bit unlikely that U.S. intelligence agencies would have a hard time getting information

about what’s happening 

 

in a country where they themselves are physically located. 

………..

Moon of Alabama theorized at the time that this ridiculous,

……..

“We don’t know what’s happening

……..

in our own proxy war” line was being pushed

……

to give the U.S. plausible deniability

………..

about Ukraine’s failures on the battlefield, which have only gotten worse since then.

………
So why are they telling us all this now?…   

 

Well, it could be that we’re being paced into accepting an increasingly direct role of the U.S.

and its allies in Ukraine.

The other day Antiwar’s Daniel Larison tweeted,

“Hawks in April: Don’t call it a proxy war!

Hawks in May: Of course it’s a proxy war!

Hawks in June: It’s not their war,

it’s our war!”

This is indeed exactly how it happened. Back in April President Joe Biden told the press the idea that this is a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia

was “not true”

and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said 

“It’s not, this is clearly Ukraine’s fight”

when asked if this is a proxy war. The mainstream media were

still framing this claim as merely an “accusation” by the Russian

government and empire spinmeisters were regularly 

admonishing anyone who used that term on the grounds

that it deprives Ukrainians of their “agency.”

Then May rolled around and

all of a sudden we had The New Yorker unequivocally telling us that the

U.S. is in “a full proxy war with Russia” and hawks like U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton saying things like,

“We’re not just at war to support the Ukrainians.

We’re fundamentally at war, although somewhat through a proxy,

with Russia,

and it’s important that we win.”

And now here in June we’ve got war hawks

like Max Boot 

coming right out and saying 

that this is

actually America’s war,

and it is therefore important

for the U.S.

to drastically escalate it in order

to hand the Russians “devastating losses.”

So, the previously unthinkable idea that the U.S. is at war with Russia

has been gradually normalized,

with the heat turned up so slowly that

the frog doesn’t notice

it’s being boiled alive.

If that idea can be sufficiently normalized,

public consent for greater escalations will likely be forthcoming, even if those escalations are extremely psychotic.

Back in March when I said

the only “agency” Ukraine has in this conflict

is the Central Intelligence one,

empire loyalists jumped down my throat.

They couldn’t believe I was saying something so evil and wrong.

Now they’ve been told that

the Central Intelligence Agency is indeed conducting operations

and directing intelligence

on the ground in Ukraine,

but I somehow doubt that this will stir any self-reflection on their part.”

[“American and other allied special operations forces 

 have trained with their Ukrainian counterparts for years."]

..........

.....................

Unlocked and broken doors at Uvalde, Texas school were open invitation for mass killers as they were in Sandy Hook. Even with unlocked door, police waited outside an hour for a key-AP

“The teacher did close the door, but unbeknownst to her, it could be locked only from the outside.”…The 18-year-old gunman entered through a door that could only be locked from the outside. Then he cruised into a classroom whose door had a broken lock.…“There was “zero obstacle to the shooter.”…”A teacher reported before the shooting that the lock was broken.”...“Despite the door being unlocked, there was no indication officers tried to open it during the standoff.…Police instead waited for more than an hour for a key.”…At Sandy Hook massacre 10 years ago, the doors of the two classrooms “could only be locked from the hallway with a key.”…..

6/22/22, “Unlocked doors were ‘first line of defense’ at Uvalde school," AP, Heather Hollingsworth

…..

“A section of a classroom door from Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, is seen as Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw testifies at a Texas Senate hearing at the state capitol, Tuesday, June 21, 2022, in Austin, Texas. Two teachers and 19 students were killed in last month’s mass shooting in Uvalde. (AP Photo)”

“The Uvalde massacre began after the 18-year-old gunman entered the school through

a door that could only be locked from the outside

then got inside a classroom

that had a busted lock, 

experts testified Tuesday.

Securing doors has long been

a focus of school safety drills,

and the inability to do so during the May 24 attack that left 19 children and two teachers dead is raising alarms

among experts and

politicians. [Not parents? Not taxpayers who pay all the salaries and expenses? Not all normal people?]

When doors are not secure, “your first step,

your first line of defense has now been eliminated,” said Ken Trump, the president of the National School Safety and Security Services.

State Sen. Paul Bettencourt said

unlockable doors make lockdowns and shooter training worthless, adding that

there was “zero obstacle to the shooter.”

Questions about how the shooter entered Robb Elementary and what happened at multiple doors have been a big part of the changing information about the attack.

WHAT HAPPENED WHEN THE GUNMAN REACHED THE OUTSIDE DOOR?

State police initially said the gunman entered the school through

an exterior door

that had been propped open by a teacher.

Days later, state police retracted that statement to make it clear that

the teacher closed the door.

But somehow it didn’t lock.

Nearly a month after the rampage, Col. Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, further amended what his agency’s investigation shows:

The teacher did close the door,

but unbeknownst to her,

it could be locked only from the outside.

The gunman “walked straight through,” McCraw said Tuesday in blistering testimony at a state Senate hearing in Austin.

Ronald Stephens, executive director of the National School Safety Center, said he was

“astonished” that the exterior door could only be locked from the outside.

He likened it to a house that could only be locked from the outside.

“Shouldn’t the security of the school be as safe as the security of your home?” he asked.

Experts did not explain during the hearing why the school’s exterior door locked from outside. Robb Elementary is an older building, constructed in 1955.

WHAT HAPPENED WHEN THE GUNMAN REACHED THE CLASSROOM DOOR?

Once inside the school, the shooter then entered a classroom though a door that was designed to be locked from the outside, according to McCraw, who also said a teacher reported before the shooting that

the lock was broken.

“This is ridiculous and it’s inexcusable,” McCraw said of

the fact that the classroom door could not be locked from inside.

Stephens and Trump also raised alarms about

the fact that the door was broken, describing it as a maintenance issue.

McCraw also disclosed Tuesday that

despite the door being unlocked,

there was no indication officers tried to open it during the standoff.

He said

police instead waited for more than an hour for a key.…

WHY DID THE DOORS LOCK FROM THE OUTSIDE?

Many schools designed in the 20th century featured classroom doors that locked from the outside, allowing the teacher or administrator to lock up as they left for the day, Todd Ferking explained in an email. Ferking is a design leader for DLR Group, an architecture firm that specializes in school design.

“Locking from inside the classroom may not have been a popular option out of concern that students could lock the teacher out,” he said.

The Columbine tragedy led to an evolution in school construction, he said, with most new classrooms designed to provide locking from inside via a key or thumb turn.

Today, it also is general practice that all exterior doors are locked during school hours, except during drop-off and pick-up, he said.

HAVE THERE BEEN PROBLEMS BEFORE?

At Sandy Hook Elementary School, the doors of the two classrooms

where all 20 children were killed in the 2012 massacre, along with their teachers,

could only be locked from the hallway

with a key.

Some victims’ families have said lives could have been saved if teachers had been able to lock classroom doors from the inside, and they questioned whether two teachers who were killed in the shooting, Victoria Soto and Lauren Rousseau, even had access to keys.

Another teacher who could not get a classroom door locked told investigators

that

she looked into the hallway, saw a janitor

who yelled at the gunman to leave

and motioned to the janitor to lock her door.

Sandy Hook Elementary was built around the same time as Robb Elementary, in 1956.

Mo Canady, the executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers,

spoke publicly about the importance of being able to secure doors [from inside]

after Sandy Hook. He lamented that it was

still an issue a decade later.

“That school,” he said of Robb Elementary, “I can promise you, is not the only one in this country that

you can’t lock the doors from the inside.”

Such doors, he said, occasionally are spotted during assessments of buildings, particularly older ones. He described it as “unacceptable”

and urged schools to fix busted doors and retrofit doors that only lock from the outside while students are on summer break.

“The basics are so important,

and if your school district does not have doors that will allow the teachers to secure those in a lockdown, that’s a priority,” he said. “Those things really can and do save lives.”

WHAT STEPS ARE RECOMMENDED?

State and federal panels charged with reviewing individual mass shootings

have repeatedly advised schools to limit access by locking exterior doors,

as well as forcing visitors to enter through a secure door

and requiring teachers to lock classrooms while classes are in session.

Teachers and students drill for how to respond.

“Lock the door, turn off the light. Get the kids and staff into a hard corner, meaning not in the direct line of sight of the window where somebody can shoot through, and be quiet,” Trump said….

Uvalde in March had retained PBK, a design, architecture, engineering and planning firm that focuses on schools, to conduct a review of its buildings as it considered a potential bond issue,

said Ian Powell, who heads safety and security for the firm.

Powell said part of that review involved ensuring that the school’s safety protocols met the standards of the Texas Education Agency. The review also included everything from evaluating cooling systems to windows.

He said more schools are opting for so-called door lock indicators,

which make it easier for teachers to see whether their door is locked while inside their classrooms.

Texas doesn’t require such locks.

Powell said he doesn’t know any jurisdiction that does,

although the firm recommends them.

But before that review got underway in earnest, the shooting happened.

Since then, Powell said, the district has asked the firm to expand the scope of its security review. Other districts also have been calling seeking security reviews.

“We would all have wished that something would have been implemented and would have had the time to be implemented before they had the exposure to this type of a situation,” he said.”

___

........

Trump’s useless 2016 election was made possible by Clinton, Bush, and Obama’s 24 disastrous years of toppling dictators, sanctioning ‘rogue’ states, signing ‘defense’ agreements, and scorning Americans-12/10/2018, Stephen M. Walt

By 2016 “America was formally committed to defending more foreign countries than at any time in the nation’s history.” Clinton, Bush, and Obama’s 24 years, “set about using American power to topple dictators,…sanction so-called rogue states, and bring as many countries as possible into security institutions led by the United States...The public has every reason to reject an approach to the world that has repeatedly failed, and to demand a better alternative. Some voters mistakenly believed they would get it from Trump, but he hasn’t delivered and almost certainly won’t. The question remains: what-and whom-will it take before the American people get the more restrained foreign policy they want and deserve?”…

12/10/2018, “The Death of Global Order Was Caused by Clinton, Bush, and Obama,” Foreign Policy, Stephen M. Walt

Image: 12/5/2018, “President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump, former President Barack Obama, former first lady Michelle Obama, former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton listen during state funeral for former President George H. W. Bush at Washington National Cathedral  in Washington, DC,” getty

“America’s post-Cold War presidents could have taken a road that didn’t end at Donald Trump.”

“A recurring theme of foreign-policy commentary since 2016 has been

the prior status and

uncertain future of the so-called liberal order.

Some writers question whether a liberal order ever existed or challenge its alleged virtues, while others are quick to defend its past achievements

and bemoan its potential demise.

If there is a consensus among these various commentators, however, it is that U.S. President Donald Trump

poses a particular threat to

the U.S.-led, rules-based order that has supposedly

been in place since 1945.

If only Hillary Clinton had become president, some believe, the United States would have remained the “indispensable nation” guiding the world toward a more benign future, and the familiar elements of

a rules-based order would be thriving (or at least intact)….

But it is a mistake to see him [Trump] as the sole–or even the most important–cause of

the travails now convulsing

the U.S.-led order.

Indeed, the seeds of our present troubles were sown long before Trump entered the political arena,

and are in good part due to foreign-policy decisions made by the administrations of former Presidents

Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.

Think back…to the beginning of the “unipolar moment.”

Having [allegedly] triumphed over the Soviet Union, the United States could have given itself a high-five, taken a victory lap,

and adopted a grand strategy better suited

to a world without a superpower rival.

Rejecting isolationism, Washington could nonetheless have gradually disengaged from those

areas that no longer needed significant American protection

and reduced its global military footprint,

while remaining ready to act in a few key areas should it become absolutely necessary.

These moves would have forced our wealthiest allies to take on greater responsibility for local problems

while the United States addressed pressing domestic needs.

Making the “American dream” more real here at home [42 million Americans live in poverty]

would also have shown other nations why the values of liberty, democracy, open markets, and the rule of law

were worth emulating.

This sensible alternative was barely discussed in official circles, however.

Instead, both Democrats and Republicans quickly united behind an

ambitious strategy of “liberal hegemony,”

which sought to spread liberal values far and wide.

Convinced that the winds of progress were at their back and

enamored of an image of America as the world’s “indispensable nation,”

they set about using American power to topple dictators, spread democracy,

sanction so-called rogue states,

and bring as many countries as possible

into security institutions led by the United States.

By 2016, in fact, America [meaning US taxpayers] was formally committed

to defending more foreign countries

than at any time in the nation’s history.

America’s leaders may have had the best of intentions, but

the strategy they pursued was mostly a failure.

Relations with Russia and China today are worse than at any time since the Cold War….The Middle East is as divided as it has ever been. North Korea, India, and Pakistan have all tested nuclear weapons and expanded their nuclear stockpiles….Violent extremists are active in more places, the European Union is wobbling,

and the uneven benefits of globalization have produced a powerful backlash against the

liberal economic order that the United States had actively promoted.

All of these trends were well underway long before Trump became president. But many of them would have been

less likely or less pronounced

had the United States chosen a different path. 

In Europe, the United States could have resisted the siren song of NATO expansion and

stuck with the original “Partnership for Peace,” a set of security arrangements

that included Russia.

Over time, it could have gradually

drawn down its military presence

and turned European security back over to the Europeans.

Russia’s leaders would not have felt as threatened....A wiser United States would have let

Iraq and Iran check each other

instead of attempting “dual containment” in the Persian Gulf,

eliminating the need to keep thousands of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia

after the first Gulf War….

With no 9/11, we almost surely would not have had invaded and occupied Iraq or Afghanistan, thereby

saving several trillion dollars and thousands of U.S. and foreign lives. The Islamic State would never have emerged,

and the refugee crisis and terrorist attacks…in Europe would have been far less significant.

A United States less distracted by wars in the Middle East could have moved more swiftly to counter China’s growing ambitions, and it would have had more resources available to accomplish this essential task.

Instead of naively assuming that a rising China

would eventually become democratic

and willingly abide by existing

international norms,

the United States could also have made

Beijing’s [2001] entry into the World Trade Organization contingent

on it first abandoning its predatory trade practices

and establishing more effective legal institutions at home, including protections for intellectual property.”…

[May 25, 2000, Pres. Bill Clinton: “Today the House of Representatives has taken an historic step toward continued prosperity in America, reform in China and peace in the world. If the Senate votes as the House has just done, to extend permanent normal trade relations with China, it will open new doors of trade for America and new hope for change in China.“…“China did not conform to democracy in the way the United States had hoped. In fact, its vast economic gains have only legitimized the Chinese CommunistParty (CCP), which President Xi Jinping believes is central to maintaining economic stability and enabling China to dominate technology-driven industries….Why did [Bill] Clinton and others believe the WTO would rein China in? The WTO is an offshoot of a post-World War II trade agreement that countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom created to encourage...a world of international institutions that all promoted similar values. The WTO rules were not written with China…in mind. China has elements of a capitalist system, but is still run by a communist government. There are many influential government-owned companies (China’s oil and gas giant, Sinopec, took in more money in 2019 than any other company in the world, other than Walmart)….Instead of conforming, China is using the WTO to its advantage….The bulk of allegations against China say that China promotes its exports while remaining largely closed to foreign goods."]

(continuing): “Moreover, greater attention to how the benefits of globalization were distributed

would also have reduced inequality in the United States

and tempered the polarization that is ripping the country apart today. And as Rosella Zielinski argues in a recent article in Foreign Affairs,

financing foreign wars by borrowing money (instead of by raising taxes)

lets the wealthiest Americans off easy

and even allows them to earn interest lending to the federal government,

exacerbating existing economic disparities. In this way,

an overly ambitious grand strategy helped make economic inequality worse.

Finally, a more restrained grand strategy would not have tempted U.S. leaders to use torture, extraordinary rendition, targeted killings, unwarranted electronic surveillance, and other betrayals of core U.S. values. It would also have freed up trillions of dollars that could have been spent strengthening our armed forces, providing better health care for U.S. citizens, rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure, investing in early childhood education, or reducing persistent deficits….

When one looks back on what the pursuit of “liberal hegemony” has wrought, there can be little doubt that a different approach would have left the United States (and many other countries) in much better shape today. And the liberal order that many are now desperate to save would be in much better shape.

Nor is it implausible to imagine one additional benefit: Trump would not be president.

Back in 2016, when he called U.S. foreign policy a “complete and total disaster,”

a lot of Americans nodded in agreement and cast their votes for him.

Unfortunately, his erratic, incompetent, and needlessly combative handling of foreign affairs has succeeded only in making America less popular and influential,

without reducing any of its global burdens.

The United States is still “nation building,” still waging wars in far-flung locales,

still spending more on defense than the eight next largest militaries combined,

and still subsidizing numerous wealthy allies.

Defenders of our past follies now bemoan

Americans’ reluctance to support

the same overweening global strategy that produced

so many disappointments.

But the public has every reason to reject an approach to the world that has repeatedly failed,

and to demand a better alternative.

Some voters mistakenly believed they would get it from Trump,

but he hasn’t delivered and almost certainly won’t.

The question remains: what-and whom-will it take

before the American people get the more restrained foreign policy

they want and deserve?”

 

 

………………………..