Why don't they just tell us with words?

My son and I occasionally get into conversations that I have no idea where they start from. Tonight, on the way home from shopping, out of the blue he asked me which country was the most famous. I stumbled for a few seconds and then asked him what he meant by famous to clarify his intentions. He said the country that everyone likes, and is known by people all over the world. I talked about how there are a number of countries that a lot of people know about, the United Stated, being one of them. Then I added, "but there are a lot of people around the world that don't like us."

"Why not, Daddy?"

"Well, because of things that we do around the world, like the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places over seas."

"We're still fighting over there?"

"Yes, there are still men and women over there."

"Why are they still over there?"

"Good question. The President would say that it's to protect us from terrorists that want to come over to America and hurt people over here, like they did with the Twin Towers."

"What Twin Towers?"

This is when I realized that 6 years after the attack, we'd done apparently pretty darn good job of sheltering at least him from the events of that day. It sounded like he was ready to hear a little bit about it anyway. I continued, "The ones in New York that they flew the planes into and made fall."

"Why did they do that?" He's a very inquisitive little boy, I thought. If only he realized how insightful (I don't think that's the word I want) he was.

"Well," I said. "I'm not really sure, but most people say it's because they don't like us."

"Why don't they just tell us with words instead of crashing planes?"

"Another good question," I answered...

Then we pulled into the driveway. "I ask a lot of questions, don't I," he said.

"Yes you do. And that's a good thing."