I think much of what drives this semantic discussion is that our political leadership is very much concerned with the semantics. This has much to do with now being in charge of things they've opposed (implied they would end, even) for the past few years and coming up with ways to explain and support the effort without using exact terms that countless YouTube clips would reveal them condemning.

This is not a comment on the worthiness of either our leadership or the semantic discussion here, merely an observation of what I perceive is happening. I believe that for some participants the NCA-level semantic discussion is divorced from any strategic decision making, btw. While that relationship is of concern to those here, and the framework of these discussions, for those "calling the shots" it's less "what is this that confronts us and is there an appropriate strategy" and more "how do we sell this? It's X but we can't call it that, we're anti-X after all."

(X meaning "war" or "surge" or any number of things. "Nation building" is certainly unpalatable too, for a slightly different reason.)

Speaking of marketable semantics, here's a WaPo headline over a well written and in many aspects troubling account of Marines in A'stan from Rajiv Chandrasekaran): "A Fight for Ordinary Peace".

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...102815_pf.html