I'm not entirely sure who "some people" are, but I have noticed that official spokescreatures never, ever, use the word "war". They use all sorts of other euphemisms instead.

I think this may be due to the uncertainty over war powers. The Constitution reserves to Congress the right to declare war, for the good reason that the Founders considered war a matter of grave import and didn't want a rogue Chief Executive to commit the US to war without the due consideration of Congress. In theory the War Powers Act of the early 70s strengthened this (Congress was pissed at Nixon for secretly expanding the Vietnam War), but it left a gaping loophole giving the President the right to go to [war] without Congress's approval in the event of an imminent attack--self-defense.

Presidents have been cheerfully evading the Constitution for a long time by calling war something other than war: "Police actions", "conflicts", "peacekeeping", "liberation", "Operation Iraqi Freedom", and everything else you can get from a thesaurus to avoid saying "war".

Yeah, we're at war. Anything else is just weaseling. But hey, our weasels are the good weasels, not like those awful weasels in Europe.

--Robert