Words are important.
Spoken or heard, they reflect and affect our thoughts by the specific meanings they carry, the concepts they suggest, and the emotions they touch. Their influence on the human psyche, and therefore on our actions, is enormous. That s why the State Department s July 19 announcement that henceforth rogue states will be called states of concern is a potential springboard for resolving long standing but now anachronistic disputes with other nations. It really hasn t been that many years since rogue became linked with nations or states in the parlance of international relations and national politics. General Colin Powell observed, I m running out of demons.