"Bottom line is that Benes wimped out, and the nation suffered the consequences."
Was that the Czech Republic or Slovakia Benes was representing? Czechoslovakia was a shotgun wedding of a nation from the start created in the aftermath of WWI just like the current Ukraine is a shotgun wedding of a nation created in the wake of the Cold War.
You do know that when they could do as they damn well pleased Czechoslovakia became two countries, don't you?
If Benes was the problem, then by extension the losers who are now pretending to run the Ukraine are the problem. So, the solution is have Americans fight to support obvious losers who have good intentions?
Oh, I forgot, you assert that people who can say, "been there, done that", are unqualified to consider such matters.
What's wrong with a Ukraine and a, I dunno, what would they call themselves, Donbas is the region?, so the nation of Donbas as two separate countries?
Can countries decide their own fate without being bombed into agreeing with the European elites who run the EU and NATO?
Is self-determination only for puppets of or members of the EU and/or NATO or is it for everyone?
Why is it good when NATO, US, or UN, troops impose a government on a sovereign nation but not good when a sovereign nation decides to have a tidy and fairly bloodless little Civil War of sorts to work out their own problems?
Why are operatives from the EU and NATO being in the Ukraine no big deal but Russian ones being there just horrible? I mean, sending troops is pretty much sending operatives, no? (and if there aren't US/NATO people on the ground there already it'll be a break from the norm)
Say the US and NATO ride to the aide of the Ukraine and it's like Hungary in '56 but with us on the receiving end, would that be "proof" that evil Russians are resisting us or would it just be proof that Ukrainians want to settle their own problems their own way without the EU, NATO, the US, or anyone else with no "ethnic" stake in the matter mucking around in their business?
And while I think of it, what's to keep aid to the Ukraine from leading to the same sort of thing that freedom fighters in Syria are doing where, with stomachs full of US MREs and US supplied arms and ammunition, Mooze Lames are butchering whole towns full of men, women, and children?
US advisers? The innate kindness of the Ukrainian people who didn't bat an eye at Nazi atrocities during WWII? Or, is it that as long as "ethnic Russians" are on the receiving end it's no big deal just like it was no big deal as long as Jews were on the receiving end? You know, nipping the risks to Ukrainian security in the bud. The kind of thing "disarming ethnic Russians" implies.
The topic in this thread is whether it makes sense to send nonlethal aid. If the Ukrainian government were semi-organized, not obviously bought by Putin and not inclined to surrender, then probably. Given that the government is not obviously any of the above, the odds are good that any aid sent is a gift to Russia or to the numbered accounts of the Ukrainian leadership. Besides, there's no actual war going going on. The Ukrainian army don't actually need anything right now. If any fighting begins, there'll be plenty of time to supply them. The Afghans started their insurgency with muzzle-loading 19th century rifles. Ukrainians should have plenty of time to bleed the Russians if they invade.