Last Wednesday night a terrorist event began in Moscow and the situation was handled in a way… Last Wednesday night a terrorist event began in Moscow and the situation was handled in a way that never would have had happened here.

They lost at least 116 people out of a group of 763; we would have lost every one. Some of the details are still being ironed out, but the important details won’t change.

A reported group of approximately 40 to 50 Chechen men and women charged into a theater and took 763 people hostage. They said they would not let the hostages go until their demands were met.

The New York Times reported Oct. 25 that a rebel Chechen woman said, “It makes no difference for us where we will die. We have chosen to die here, in Moscow, and we will take the lives of hundreds of the infidels with us.”

The article went on to quote another Chechen rebel saying, “I swear to God we are more keen on dying than you are keen on living.”

What did the Chechens want? Who cares? It doesn’t matter. No government should ever meet the demands of terrorists, especially a group with the mindset the Chechens had.

They had wired the theater’s supporting pillars, seats and even themselves with plastic explosives. They told the police that if they tried to rush the building they would blow it up.

After a few days of negotiating with the Chechens it was clear that they, along with all of the hostages, would die if the demands weren’t met soon.

At the approval of President Vladimir Putin, the Russian government pumped the building full of a still unnamed gas. This caused the terrorists and most of the hostages to quickly pass out, which prevented the terrorists from blowing up the theater.

An Oct. 28 article in The New York Times reported that “[Russian] snipers shot the unconscious guerillas carrying explosives, all of them evidently women, to prevent them from detonating their bombs.”

There is nothing wrong with execution of the rebel Chechens. The Russians then didn’t have to worry about missing any bombs or detonators. Those rebels were clearly ready to die and people such as them are dangerous and unpredictable.

I personally feel that the rebel Chechens got off easy. The Russians should have taken all of them to a field and tied them together. Once all had regained consciousness, the Russians then should have shot each one in the stomach and watched them slowly die. Now they can die for their cause – slowly.

How dare they use any innocent person’s life as a bargaining chip? How dare they force their views on other people to the point of life and death?

This unnamed gas took the lives of at least 116 of the hostages. Putin is getting a lot of heat about this. I personally commend Putin. He took what he decided to be the best calculated move in a lose-lose situation and went with it.

Putin did not cause deaths – he saved lives.

It was originally released to the press that this decision to storm the building was made when the Chechens announced they were going to start killing people by the hour until their demands were met. Later it came to light that the Russians planned the raid shortly after the hostage began and that they had already completed a trial run in a similar building.

Some criticize Putin for this, too. People feel the gas technique was a poor move. Some Russians are appalled that the government planned this event, which they deem a disaster, almost from the start and was not a one-the-spot decision.

It would have been one thing if the government had to make a quick decision and they made the best decision based on the moment. One can be much more critical of the gas technique when they know that it had been carefully planned out.

But, the people of Russia should be happy that this wasn’t a spur of the moment decision. Their government was able to plan its attack and have a test run. This meant its increased efficiency could save additional lives. Those additional lives – and most likely all of the lives taken hostage – probably wouldn’t have been saved if this situation had happened in our country.

The people of our country would never accept a solution that included the loss of any captives. We like to create fun little ideas such as, “leave no child behind.” In the real world children will be left behind and people will die.

The question is how do you make the best out of a bad situation? We would have tried to negotiate with the terrorists until they got frustrated and blew up the building.

If that situation had happened here and everyone died, people would have said, “Oh, well, the government couldn’t do anything. There was nothing to be done.” As a result, our government would have gotten less heat if nobody were saved – in contrast to the six out of every seven that was saved in Russia. The American people would never approve of sacrificing a few lives to save the majority. Instead, we’d rather lose everyone trying to save them all.

If we did make such a calculated risk, everyone here would be irate. We would be recounting ballots in Florida again and asking President George W. Bush to resign.

Todd Brandon Morris is a columnist for the Pitt News. He sends his condolences to the families of the fallen hostages. They died so that others could live. He can be contacted at [email protected].