A decade later, the present is still contaminated by the crimes of that era, but so much has changed. Not necessarily for the better -- a decade ago, most spoke of climate change as a distant problem, and then it caught up with us in 10,000 ways. But not entirely for the worse either -- the vigorous climate movement we needed arose in that decade and is growing now. If there is one thing we can draw from where we are now and where we were then, it’s that the unimaginable is ordinary, and the way forward is almost never a straight path you can glance down, but a labyrinth of surprises, gifts, and afflictions you prepare for by accepting your blind spots as well as your intuitions.

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A Department of Veterans Affairs accounting released in response to inquiries from The Associated Press shows a heavy financial and emotional cost involving vets from Iraq, Afghanistan and even back to Vietnam, and lasting long after a victim leaves the service.

Sexual assault or repeated sexual harassment can trigger a variety of health problems, primarily post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. While women are more likely to be victims, men made up nearly 40 percent of the patients the VA treated last year for conditions connected to what it calls "military sexual trauma."

It took years for Ruth Moore of Milbridge, Maine, to begin getting treatment from a VA counseling center in 2003 — 16 years after she was raped twice while she was stationed in Europe with the Navy. She continues to get counseling at least monthly for PTSD linked to the attacks and is also considered fully disabled.

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Sheehan's remarks served as a defense of the military's current drone strike policy. While the majority of U.S. drone strikes are carried out by the CIA and authorized by the president directly, the Pentagon oversees strikes in Pakistan and will take increasing control of U.S. drone programs. Sheehan also defended the current structure of the Authorization for the Use of Military Force Act (AUMF), passed after 9/11, which, in its present iteration, grants the president wide-ranging powers to wage drone wars. “At this point we’re comfortable with the AUMF as it is currently structured,” said Sheehan. He admitted that there was no expiration date or geographic boundary to the War on Terror.

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A Muslim militant group, Hizb-e-Islami, claimed responsibility for the early morning attack and said it had targeted an American convoy.

NATO did not immediately release the nationalities of the killed troops and contractors. Six Afghan civilians, including children, were also killed in the explosion, Kabul provincial police spokesman Hashmad Stanakzi said.

Hizb-e-Islami said its newly formed special "martyrdom" unit had been stalking the convoy for weeks. The announcement could mean a steep escalation for the movement, based in northeastern Afghanistan, which has fought against the American-led coalition but is also a fierce rival of the Taliban.

Severed body parts littered the scene of the blast in eastern Kabul, and one coalition vehicle was reduced to a mangled pile of metal. The explosion, which wounded more than 35 others people, was powerful enough to rattle buildings on the other side of the city.

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"We can agree to give them the bases – them staying on after 2014 is for the good of Afghanistan," Karzai said in a speech at Kabul University. "The condition is that they bring peace and security and take action quickly … on the basic strengthening of Afghanistan, helping the economy of Afghanistan."

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During the height of the Iraq war, no combat operation would be complete without a bomb-sniffing dog leading the way. During downtime on huge bases the dogs and their military handlers were generally sequestered away from other soldiers to minimize the chance of accidents or injuries.

In Afghanistan, a soldier's life is very different. The outposts are austere and remote, and there is no separate area for the working dogs. If there is a working dog at the outpost, it is part of the infantry family there, as much a soldier as any of them.

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Then this Sunday, the foundation that oversees the still-unopened September 11 National Memorial and Museum at ground zero voted to charge visitors an admission fee of $20 to $25, because it can’t cover the museum’s projected operating cost of $60 million a year with donations alone.

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Please take a moment to subscribe to The I Files, a totally free one-stop news source, for a first look at the best documentaries and news videos available online.

The I Files is like a 100-to-1 long-shot filly that comes charging around the final bend into the home stretch and wins the race by a head in a heart-stopping finish. Watching is exciting and the payoff is rewarding.

“The Man Who Killed Osama bin Laden,” Center for Investigative Reporting

After watching this video, a bottle of urine and a bacon breakfast sandwich will always be inextricably linked with the death of Osama bin Laden.

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Under the tutelage of a friend known to the Tsarnaev family only as Misha, Tamerlan gave up boxing and stopped studying music, his family said. He began opposing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He turned to websites and literature claiming that the CIA was behind the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and Jews controlled the world.

"Somehow, he just took his brain," said Tamerlan's uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, who recalled conversations with Tamerlan's worried father about Misha's influence. Efforts over several days by The Associated Press to identify and interview Misha have been unsuccessful.

Tamerlan's relationship with Misha could be a clue in understanding the motives behind his religious transformation and, ultimately, the attack itself. Two U.S. officials say he had no tie to terrorist groups.

Throughout his religious makeover, Tamerlan maintained a strong influence over his siblings, including Dzhokhar, who investigators say carried out the deadly attack by his older brother's side, killing three and injuring 264 people.

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Local TV broadcast footage of the dramatic scene in which Musharraf jumped into a black SUV and escaped as a member of his security team hung to the side of the vehicle. He sped away to his large compound on the outskirts of Islamabad that is protected by high walls, razor wire and guard towers.

This week has gone from bad to worse for Musharraf, who seized power in a coup in 1999 when he was serving as army chief and spent nearly a decade in power before being forced to step down in 2008. He returned last month after four years in self-imposed exile to make a political comeback despite legal challenges and Taliban death threats, but has since faced paltry public support.

A court in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Tuesday disqualified Musharraf from running in the parliamentary election scheduled for May 11, likely squashing his hopes for political comeback.

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Now Junger has made a film without the co-directing aid of Hetherington; Junger's film, "Which Way Is the Front Line From Here," is a tribute to Hetherington, who died covering the Libyan civil war in 2011. The film, compiled of interviews and Hetherington's own footage, airs on HBO April 18.

Hetherington, who had been in Afghanistan on assignment for Vanity Fair, was not a war photographer in the traditional sense; as Junger's documentary conveys, he was far more interested in the fringes or consequences of war than in pictures of soldiers firing on their enemies, devoting his attention to children in Sri Lanka or to American soldiers sleeping after toilsome days.

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In our ongoing partnership with Salon, the editors of The I Files have compiled our selections of the week’s best investigative videos culled from traditional news outlets and independent producers. These include breaking stories, as well as archival pieces that offer deeper insights into current headlines. But these are just our choices – let us know what you think.

For a first look at the latest investigations that you might otherwise miss, please take a moment to subscribe to The I Files channel on YouTube. Subscribing costs nothing, requires no commitment and is 100 percent pain-free. Think of The I Files as a friendly drone whose sole mission is to go out into the Internet and gather the best videos for your perusal – only without the whole creepy, big brother, robotic angle.

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When 25-year-old Anne Smedinghoff died in a suicide bombing in the Afghan province of Zabul on Saturday, she sparked a painful and bitter debate about the meaning of the 11-year US intervention in Afghanistan.

On one side stand the State Department and the US Embassy in Kabul, along with the many friends and relatives of the young foreign service officer who are trying to find meaning in her death.

“She thought she could change the world,” said US Ambassador James Cunningham, speaking at a memorial service for Smedinghoff in Kabul on Monday. “Well, she’d made a good start, and in doing so changed us.”

Secretary of State John Kerry, who had met Smedinghoff while in Afghanistan last month, paid glowing tribute to her in a statement he issued Saturday.

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An Afghan official involved in the operation who did not want to be named said air support was called in after local and coalition forces came under attack, resulting in the death of an American and injuries to several Afghan soldiers.

The official said the force did not know there were women and children in the houses that were hit.

Civilian casualties caused by NATO forces have been one of the most contentious issues in the 11-year campaign against Taliban insurgents, provoking harsh criticism from Afghan President Hamid Karzai and angry public protests.

"Ten children and eight militants were killed in the strike, six women were wounded," Wasifullah Wasifi, the spokesman for Kunar province, told AFP.

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The violence – hours after the U.S. military's top officer arrived for consultations with Afghan and U.S.-led coalition officials – illustrates the instability plaguing the nation as foreign forces work to pull nearly all their combat troops out of the country by the end of 2014.

The attacks came just days after insurgents stormed a courthouse, killing more than 46 people in one of the deadliest attacks of the war, now in its 12th year.

The three U.S. service members, two U.S. civilians and the doctor were killed when the group was struck by an explosion while traveling to donate books to students in a school in the south, officials and the State Department said.

In a statement, Secretary of State John Kerry said the Americans included a department of defense civilian and the foreign service officer.

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Corruption in Afghanistan today is acute and permeates all sectors of society. In recent years, anecdotal evidence on the subject has been superseded by the studies of researchers, surveys by NGOs, and periodic reports by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). There is also the Corruption Perceptions Index of the Berlin-based Transparency International (TI). Last year, it bracketed Afghanistan with two other countries as the most corrupt on Earth.

None of these documents, however, refers to the single most important fact when it comes to corruption: that it’s Washington-based.  It is, in fact, rooted in the massive build-up of U.S. forces there from 2005 onward, the accompanying expansion of American forward operating bases, camps, and combat outposts from 29 in 2005 to nearly 400 five years later, and above all, the tsunami of cash that went with all of this.

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Two officials said Monday that Sgt. Michael Cable, 26, was guarding a meeting of Afghan and U.S. officials in Nangarhar province when the stabbing occurred.

One of the officials estimated the attacker was 16 years old, but he escaped so the age couldn't be verified.

The official says the youth was not believed to be from the Afghan security forces so the Wednesday stabbing is not being classified as an insider attack.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

The Pentagon said in a statement last week that Cable died from injuries sustained when his unit was attacked by enemy forces.

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Rasool and other Afghan villagers have their own name for Predator drones. They call them benghai, which in the Pashto language means the "buzzing of flies." When they explain the noise, they scrunch their faces and try to make a sound that resembles an army of flies.

"They are evil things that fly so high you don't see them but all the time you hear them," said Rasool, whose body is stooped and shrunken with age and his voice barely louder than a whisper. "Night and day we hear this sound and then the bombardment starts."

The U.S. military is increasingly relying on drone strikes inside Afghanistan, where the number of weapons fired from unmanned aerial aircraft soared from 294 in 2011 to 506 last year. With international combat forces set to withdraw by the end of next year, such attacks are now used more for targeted killings and less for supporting ground troops.

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Publisher Weidenfeld and Nicolson announced that it would release "I am Malala" in Britain and Commonwealth countries this fall. Little, Brown and Co. will publish the 15-year-old's memoir in the United States and much of the rest of the world.

"Malala is already an inspiration to millions around the world. Reading her story of courage and survival will open minds, enlarge hearts, and eventually allow more girls and boys to receive the education they hunger for," said Michael Pietsch, executive vice president and publisher of Little, Brown.

A Taliban gunman shot Malala on Oct. 9 in northwestern Pakistan. The militant group said it targeted her because she promoted "Western thinking" and, through a blog, had been an outspoken critic of the Taliban's opposition to educating girls.

The shooting sparked outrage in Pakistan and many other countries, and her story drew global attention to the struggle for women's rights in Malala's homeland. The teen even made the shortlist for Time magazine's "Person of the Year" in 2012.

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Kerry arrived in the Afghan capital on Monday for a 24-hour visit and was to meet Karzai, civic leaders and others to discuss continued U.S. assistance to the country. His visit coincides with the handover of a major detention center to Afghan officials.

It also comes as Karzai has infuriated U.S. officials by accusing Washington of colluding with Taliban insurgents to keep Afghanistan weak even as the Obama administration presses ahead with plans to hand off security responsibility to Afghan forces and end NATO's combat mission by the end of next year.

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