Easter Sunday. Time for a hymm. (Image of our singer available after service from Commander Cody (alias George Frayne) at Commandercody.com.)

Mother’ mother
There’s too many of you crying
Brother’ brother’ brother
There’s far too many of you dying
You know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some lovin’ here today ’ yeah

Father’ father
We don’t need to escalate
You see’ war is not the answer
For only love can conquer hate
You know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some lovin’ here today

Many people are having trouble learning what's going on in Iraq. I know I am. The embedded reporters have gone home. The rest are holed up with Baghdad Dan. The only folks on the ground seem to be from Al-Jazeera.

Here's how I'm making do.

Start your day with Juan Cole. Cole's not on the ground, he's on the home front with us. But he has a lot of sources, he's constantly digging for the best writing on the conflict, he has been a student of the region most of his life, and he has a point of view.

The most riveting piece I've seen has, unfortunately, been taken down. It was from Ginmar, a woman soldier on the front lines, and the simplest description I can give of it is that everything around Baghdad appears to be FUBAR.

What do I think? I don't think I know enough in order to know what to think, and I think that ignorance may be a deliberate strategy on all sides. War is like that.

But I think that the Internet, for all its faults, does give those who take the trouble an opportunity to see their way through the fog. Whether you use unconventional news sources, blogs, or a combination of the two, you can learn a lot about the War in Iraq this Easter Sunday. But, like this reporter, you're going to have to dig for it.

I just want to leave you now with some words from Juan Cole, the kind that should (if you're human) shake you to your shoes. He's describing where all this is heading:

We by now know how completely hollow the talk of Rumsfeld and crew about "democratization" is. How many people have been elected to office on a one-person, one-vote basis in Afghanistan, Iraq, or any place else as a result of Rumsfeld's policies? Everyone is appointed or jiggered into office by a manipulated Loya Jirga. Chalabi seems set to be jiggered into office. And, his militia appears not to be considered a threat to democracy, since the Pentagon even flew it into Iraq.

Is Cole right? I don't know. Find better sources, if you can, and draw your own conclusions.