Turn on the radio in Belgium and you get news of the terrorist attacks in French and in Dutch. Belgium is divided into Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia. There's a German-speaking area, too.To make things more complicated, Brussels, the capital, is subdivided into 19 municipalities, each with its own government. And there are six local police forces.It all adds up to a decentralized system, a dismantled federal state. And in light of last week's attacks, some have even gone so far as to suggest Belgium is a failed state.Longtime Belgian political observer and writer Geert van Istendael flatly rejects this."Libya is a failed state. Somalia is a failed state. It's not comparable. Belgium is doing well. It's making mistakes. And I'm one of the most vociferous critics of Belgium," he says.As van Istandael puts it, "there's something rotten in the state of Belgium."For starters, the lack of communication between the various secret services. A shrunken federal police force
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