Congrats and condolences to the Ruskies

[Undertoad]

Shuddup you two! Behave!

---

Back from the thread hijacking, the gas that was used has now been identified, according to the Wash. Times. It was etorphine, otherwise known as M99, "a synthetic opiate more than 500 times as powerful as morphine and more than 250 times as powerful as heroin. The great danger with M99 is that the lethal dose is only a few (normally three to six, depending on the animal) times higher than the effective incapacitating dose."

The White House doesn't yet take the position that they know what gas was used, so this may not be correct. But news reports yesterday were speculating that the gas was an opiate of some sort.

It sounds like one of my guesses might have been wrong though. If this is the gas used, they did have an antidote, but didn't use it. But who knows what considerations were involved.

It bugs me to hear people second-guessing this action. When the shit hits the fan, who knows how long you've got to get your ducks in a row. Inactivity or just working on hope is a worse sin than going in and getting some of it wrong. I also think the second-guessers don't believe in the resolve of the terrorists.

One hostage was interviewed and said in broken english that the gas was the right thing to do, that otherwise everyone would have been killed.

[MaggieL]

Originally posted by Undertoad
It was etorphine,...The great danger with M99 is that the lethal dose is only a few (normally three to six, depending on the animal) times higher than the effective incapacitating dose."

I sure would like to hear confirmation from somebody more authoritiative than Jack Wheeler; he doesn't tell us how he's reached the conclusion he has. Be that as it may it's plausible.

Most of the literature on M99 seems to be in use on elephants and horses...as well as in darts against big game. It seems to be widely regarded as too toxic for human use, which makes sense with such a narrow gap between ED50 and LD50...using it in an aerosol is mind-boggling...especailly if they didn't have enough narcotioic antagonist available. I can certainly understand why they didn't know how much to use; if word had gotten out that the Russians were testing nerve gas on humans there would have been hell to pay.

That said, with a large number of mutually supporting terrorists barracaded in a small space (small relative to how many people were involved), and assuming the Russians didn't have anything better on hand (Mr. Wheeler seems to prefer BZ :-) ) it still may have been the best move.

Certainly HRT isn't going to cast the first stone:
<blockquote><i>
Special Agent Chase Foster, spokesman for the FBI's 90-member Hostage Rescue Team, declined to say what types of ncapacitants the team uses. But he pointed out that unleashing sleeping gas presents significant problems, as the dose for a 250-pound man can be dangerously large for a child.

Asked about the knockout-gas tactic, Mr. Foster said: "With any assault there's going to a definite risk of hostage casualties. But certainly with these numbers, it definitely begs the question how many would there have been with a traditional assault, with traditional tear gas and smoke and what have you. Having been subjected to a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacking here, I am certainly loath to do it to the Russians."
</i></blockquote>
They needed to be sure the women wearing bomb-belts were incapacitated before they realized an assault was under way. If the report is true that the bomb-bearers had deliberately mingled with the hostages, upwards or thirty or more hostages could have fallen to the gas for each terrorist that was stopped and the Russians still come out ahead.

Let's see...round numbers:

800 hostages=(120 dead + 300 still hospitalized + 380 unhurrt)
50 terrorists dead


And while we're playing guilt vs. blame:

<blockquote><i>
Separatist Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov has condemned the recent Moscow hostage taking by Chechen militants, but he says the tragedy is a direct consequence of Russia's war in Chechnya. He says a group of desperate Chechens was pushed to extreme actions by the war.
</i></blockquote>

[Nic Name]

Russian government finally discloses it was Fentanyl.

It seems that timely disclosure and immediate antidote, which is readily available at hospitals, would have saved some hostage lives.