Collision and Collusion: The Strange Case of Western Aid to Eastern Europe

Rating:
Summary: Very well written, accurate and revealing.
Review: I have worked in the former USSR part time for 4 years now, and spent a lot of time there. I have become intimately familiar with what has transpired and the situation.

I have read a great deal, Russian history and much scholarly work on USSR and post. Frankly, the latter is almost 100% scholarly dreck, suitable for enriching lawns.

Nobody else has captured the essence of what has happened in the aftermath of the breakup of the USSR as well. I could add to it, for instance, the social difficulty of suddenly inverting the Marxist value system is a huge problem. Russia is trying to walk through the looking glass.

Other authors should build on Janine's work. Basically, she documents an outrage of foriegn policy and the horrible idiocy of (mostly) well meaning intellectuals and academics.

Read this book thoroughly. If you do, it will change your mind.

I watch and seethe as the same game continues today. Five star hotels get built which house the "5-Star" aid class of contractors sometimes sincerely trying to help, far too often coldly pretending with utter cynicism, and much too frequently collaborating with local people to rip off millions.

What Janine does not discuss, and should be written about by those who build on this seminal work, is the way that the ripoff game works. Billions get stolen, by heads of nations, by contractors who start banks, by so many. The legal system cannot stop it because there is no structure of law that can create a venue for prosecution of people who pull this off in places where it is done in collaboration.

Janine doesn't talk about the "warlord game" by which thugs enrich themselves either. I will not name names here, though I could. I could go on, but I won't.

Bottom line - read this book. Every American should start to understand how this works. Others should follow this courageous woman. The American people should get mad and get changes made, and most of all, travel - get out there, lend a hand to people out there with business opportunities, and find out what is being done by jerks in our name.