Putin could've caved in to the terrorists, gave in to their demands, and let them go after they murdered a 20-year-old woman. For that, he would've been roundly criticized and perhaps forced from office.

Putin could've done nothing and let the terrorists kill all 700 hostages. For that, he would've been roundly criticized as weak and ineffective.

Putin could've ordered troops to storm the theater without the gas, giving the terrorists time to detonate their explosives and kill almost all of the hostages. For that, he would've been roundly criticized as being a hot head who rushed to action, probably prematurely.

Or, Putin could take a gamble and use the gas to knock out the terrorists before they could detonate their explosives. It wouldn't surprise me if they knew there would be civilian casualties but I doubt anyone knew there would be so many innocent deaths. For that, Putin is being roundly criticized as someone who killed over 100 of his own people. The fact that hundreds of hostages survived apparently is beside the point. It sounds like Putin made a tough call and will have to take his lumps. That kind of decision goes with the job description.

Some analysts speculate that those hostages nearest to the air vents were the most likely to die due to overdoses. Some also believe that the hostages were in poor physical shape after 4 days with little food and water.

The end result of all this is over 100 hostage deaths. Before we criticize Putin too harshly, I suggest we come up with realistic alternatives. Any bonehead can carp from the sidelines but unless he can come up with a better alternative, his barking is nothing more than noise.

One thing that isn't getting a lot of attention is what happened to the terrorists. Almost all of them were shot in the head even though they were unconscious. Seeing as how many of them had explosives strapped to their bodies, no one was going to take any chances that one might wake up and detonate their bomb.