I'm of two minds on this. As you say, renaming from War to Defense was a lie to tell Americans a more palatable story. However, renaming from Defense to War is actually the same thing in the current political context but for populace with different values. It is honest in a way but that was not the intention, nor is it the effective result. It's just a different lie.

i dislike every action by a president that blatantly breaks the law, and yes that includes ignoring the tiktok ban

That's irrelevant. the point is that Congress is the body with authority to decide, not the executive branch.

it's not just newspeak though. names matter. an advanced civilization, which USA being the richest country on Earth is, should not strive to get into offensive wars...