What do we tell the children?

I remember mocking this question when it was passionately whined by those persecuting Bill Clinton for being such a slut. In particular, I remember the squirmy emotion of Sonny Bono's widow asking it; what do we tell the children? I thought she was going to cry... I thought I was going to puke...

So the other morning, I'm getting my 7 year old son ready for school & we have CNN on as I'm getting him lunch money and telling him to find his shoes, the television is full of images of black smoke and explosions and soldiers with their backs against the wall, bursting fire with their rifles into the distance... And it's time for him to brush his teeth before I tie his shoes for him and I get a chance to actually concentrate on the news for a moment; And it's YET ANOTHER gruesome story about dozens of bodies dumped around the capital city, bound & showing signs of torture, some of them beheaded and my son comes back in the living room with sparkling teeth and I hit the mute button on the remote and start tightening his laces when he hits me with me it:

"Dad - what does mutilate mean?"

What?

"What does mutilate mean?"

I couldn't answer him. It was just too much of a goddamned horror to describe to a child. All I could do was tell him in the vaguest terms that it was a scary thing and that it was a part of this useless war we're stuck in.

So how did I do?