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2) twisting the meaning to pretend that they're something that they're not (support for Russian aggression) is a bit dishonest. We should either engage them on their substance, or ignore them.
I think this is the only bit we really disagree on. Their position of 'neither Moscow nor Washington' works in practice as a framing device to draw moral equivalence between NATO 'expansion' and Russian expansion. Russia expands by rolling tanks into provinces it thinks it should own; NATO 'expands' by democratic consent of the countries involved. There is no moral equivalence between the two. By attempting to draw a moral equivalence they accept the Kremlin's framing and this amounts - for me - to de facto support for Russian belligerence.
ReekBlefs-
By attempting to draw a moral equivalence they accept the Kremlin's framing and this amounts - for me - to de facto support for Russian belligerence.
I don't think they were trying to draw moral equivalence so much as provide a picture of the geopolitical history and situation from a perspective that was not generally being reported. That position was politically motivated as they are anti-war/anti-imperialist (whatever they want to call themselves) activists. But that doesn't mean it was an attempt to draw moral equivalence. If you can't address the moral failings on both sides you can't discuss the issues. And, on the flip side, if what they said was inaccurate (or morally problematic) then it should be called out and corrected, not reframed as a political weapon to shut them down/up.
Thanks for the links. I wrote a longer response to this (this ended up being quite long anyway), but I'm not sure it's worth it.
The twitter account is uncomfortably proactive on numerous points, but I don't' have a Twitter account myself so am limited to what I can actually read. But, I'll put it this way: if I did have a Twitter account I wouldn't be following them. The second article is 8 years old and covers a very different event and situation. It's provocative and uncomfortable reading. But I've not seen any evidence for STW supporting Russian aggression in either. Instead, they're (somewhat unsurprising) left-wing criticisms of Western politics in international conflict. The second frames this in a lens of domestic Crimean politics and Nato expansion, while remaining critical of Putin to come to this conclusion: "Vladimir Putin may run a vicious regime but the people of Crimea have a right to be accepted as Russian if that’s what they want..." I'm guessing most people don't think we should go to war with with Russia to return Crimea to Ukraine, in spite of the local population, either? Even if what Russia did was fucking awful.
On the whole we don't have to agree with them but:
1) it's important they're out there (the points about Obama being a menace to world peace and a serial international law breaker are important)
2) twisting the meaning to pretend that they're something that they're not (support for Russian aggression) is a bit dishonest. We should either engage them on their substance, or ignore them.
If you want you can give me more specific examples of where STW does support Russian aggression. But a criticism of NATO/the US is not the same as actively supporting a Russian invasion of a foreign state - despite what Starmer says.
This should probably be in a different thread.