alt Hacker NewsWell put and it bothers me too. It seems to be another case of Orwellian manipulation, i.e. an expression of power through language, functioning as a litmus test of the speaker's loyalty. Serious publications are not going along with it. More craven or (here) thoughtless ones are falling in line.
I mean the original name switch was much more "Orwellian manipulation" if anything changing it back to war is undoing the bullshit implications that everything it does is defense.