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1) There is every indication, even from the press outside the threatre, that the gas was released in response to gunfire inside...the Chechens were firing at a boy running down the aisle during a tantrum...thus we are assessing not merely a strategic decision, but one made in desperation on the only viable working model, which was that the Chechens had begun executing people en masse.
2) You have to understand that every assessment of terrorist hostage situations across the globe suggests that the perpetrators have little interest in obtaining their precise demands...which are often logistically unworkable within the time frames they propose. And terrorists packing bombs are even less likely to actually be engaging in a diplomatic process: their intent is to draw attention globally and create martyr-images to inspire their kinsmen...remember that terrorists are a narrow subsection even of the people they claim to represent, and it is important to sustain an image of struggle and heroism to increase recruitment.
Think of this as a psychological profile: terrorists are *not* reasonable people, and in spite of the dialogue structure of their actions, there is no true dialogue with the people they make demands of. A hostage negotiator from the Moscow Police, or even the Special Services, cannot shift governmental policy from a position outside a theatre: hostage-takers place the onus of impossible action upon shoulders they know can not bear the weight, then respond violently at the inevitable failure. (And government high-ups can concede because it sets precedent for the systematic extortion of the government for whatever whimsy the hostage-takers, or anyone with a gun and four walls, desire...or is Ronald Reagan now a hero for trading arms to Iran to bring people home alive?)
Furthermore, terrorists are vengeful in a fashion that is willing to not merely draw that the ends justify the means, but that the ends justifies the savaging of innocent bystanders that possess an ascribed status affiliate with the hegemonies that they, the terrorists, feel in opposition to. They are, so to speak, willing to settle. Consider what kind of mentality is willing to cut that corner. The odds are if you are dealing with besieged hostage-takers with a political agenda, they will not release nor recant. Appeasement has little likelihood of serving to save lives.
3) Hostage-taking, more often than not, is logistically a suicide run. Terrorists who adopt the strategy are generally intelligent enough to understand the crushing odds against then, and operate on the assumption of eminent death.
In non-political contexts, criminals take hostages to ensure safe passage through following law enforcement. A terrorist hostage-taker is not merely ringed by cops, though: he/she is in a entire country hostile to their action, vastly outnumbered and outgunned. Even if their demands are met, the logistics of an exit plan from an entire region is generally laughable.
This was part of the value of plane hijacking: the craft is a structure easily patrolled and defended by a handful of men, is itself an exit plan *and* a means hold the hostages in place without loss of leverage.
Politically-motivated hostage-takers know this going in - the odds are overwhelmingly against them: to choose to do this is certain death. Terrorists aren't stupid, and their fanaticism is not of such a degree that they play at being the Light Brigade. Where possible, such as with plane hijacking, they can arrange things to not be so spectacularly fatal. But to hold a building in the center of an opponent's nation's capital is a suicide run. Even if Russia withdrew from Chechnya, they would still be criminals- murderers and kidnappers -and subject to regional law.
4) The ensconced terrorist is isolated by the siege he/she establishes, lacking a method even of confirming whether their demands (beyond those affecting the immediate, visible environs) have been met or relying upon a limited range of intel...and thus vulnerable to disinformation. Furthermore, terrorists immediately loose all leverage when they release their hostages. Demands can be undone, and there is no means of guaranteeing even self-preservation with their release. In toto, the hostage taker has little to no incentive to release hostages alive.
5) General operating procedure for a hostage crisis is: first, negotiation with the intent to relieve as many hostages as possible from harm, making minor concessions and demands of the takers. Remember that negotiation generally occurs at the city law level...so there really isn't any means for negotiators to obtain things like, say, a complete alteration of military policy.
Second, insertion of troups to eliminate the threat with efficiency and minimal collateral damage...which is immensely difficult - the finest anti-terrorist squads are still given an "allowance" of acceptable loss because the whole shebang is a nightmare: man-to-man gunfight within a cramped, crowded space.
The Chechens put the Russian police in a unique bind by arranging such a large unit of actors: a terrorist cell is generally a handful -four to six - clandestinely inserted into the area they wish to hold. A unit of sixty terrorists is unprecedented, and vastly complicates the matter: you can't viably launch a surprise attack against that many troops - especially when they occupy a constrained space with limited entrances - because they possess sufficient numbers where they can neither be picked off nor contained sufficiently to prevent harm to the hostages. Fifty soldiers is enough to create sets of offensive and defensive units in addition to the walking bombs, and enough to engage the enemy effectively while massacring the hostages...or merely blowing everything sky high.
Gas was a viable option for trying to immobilize the hostage-takers in toto, including the females with trigger-detonating explosives strapped to them: anything less than near-instantaneous assuring massive casualities. A 5-kilo bomb packed with metal dross means a lot of scrapnel-shredded corpses...a blast radius of up to 60' depending on the explosive. How many people in a 50' radius circle?
It didn't work. Probably for a lot of reasons we don't get because we're not aerosol biochemists. If it was invented as riot gas, it was designed to be used in open spaces on healthy people, not in a theatre of empty-stomached hostages.
But work out a different method of getting people out alive and unmaimed. Leave Chechnya? Sure...now how long would it take to pull back forces? What if it takes too long? And what if the Chechens decide to follow and harry, or recapture that contested land on their borders that's occupied by Russian citizens? What's that cost of life? And what do you do when you actually hear the semiautomatics popping inside, and suddenly it's not a question of days, but seconds?
Most folk are masters at Monday-morning quarterbacking, especially when it gives an opportunity to feel superior and palpitate one's sense of moral indignation. It allows one to retrofit blame into tidy packets, where in fact there is only muddy chaos. |
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