From: Eugen Leitl (eugen@leitl.org)
Date: Sun Oct 27 2002 - 10:12:40 MST
On Sun, 27 Oct 2002, John K Clark wrote:
> CNN says most of the 118 deaths were cause by "a sleep-inducing nerve
> gas" used by the Russians another report called it "aerosolized
> Valium", in either case they choked on their own vomit.
This is somewhat inconsistent with the data since the casualty rate of the
terrorists is much higher than that of the hostages. Either they applied
the gas selectively (possible, since the distribution of terrorists vs.
hostages was different), or let the terrorists die deliberately.
According to the reports the hostages lived on chocolate and water. I
doubt they had much appetite. Not much to vomit on...
I agree that it's impossible to reliably knock out people with gas and not
cause at least a few casualties. It might work if you go in quickly,
remove people, administer antidote, and put people on life support. It's
hard to do that with several 100 people, however.
In any case, the alternatives can be worse. We still don't know whether
the charges and the intent stated were for real.
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