50 YEARS AGO Guard dog patrols added
May 1 deadline unlikely to be met despite agreement
— Times Union, March 13, 1921
Part of Albany Medical Center had gone to the dogs. Or, more accurately, the dogs had gone to the medical center.
These were guard dogs which had been added to the security force that patrolled the center’s annex at 623 Madison Ave. at Robin Street, formerly the Academy of Holy Names.
They accompanied guards and patrolled inside and outside the building on nights and weekends. The move had been made, a spokesman said, in the interests of economy and to increase effectiveness of security measures at the annex. Not a part of security at the main plant of the hospital, the dogs were on assignment at the business and outpatient annex.
The United States appears poised to extend its troop presence in Afghanistan beyond a May 1 deadline agreed last year with the Taliban, as it races to secure an interim peace deal that could end America’s longest war and allow President Joe Biden to move toward an elusive foreign policy goal.
Deliberations about the fate of the 2,500 U.S. troops remaining in Afghanistan grow increasingly urgent as the administration approaches the deadline. The Trump administration in February 2020 agreed to the May withdrawal following negotiations with the Taliban.
While the administration cautions that no decision has been made on extending the troop presence, officials and experts point to several signs that the administration is likely to postpone a full withdrawal to buy more time to advance a powersharing proposal they hope can break an impasse in talks between the militants and the Afghan government.
Laurel Miller, who served as a senior official for Afghanistan in the Obama and Trump administrations, said it would be “unfathomable” to pull out American forces in the next 60 days without stoking insecurity and jeopardizing chances for an eventual deal that could allow the United States to withdraw without fearing that Afghanistan would again become a terrorist haven.
As the days tick by, Miller suggested, the increasing likelihood of a U.S. extension is apparent to the Taliban, who, along with its backers in Pakistan, may be inclined to support a revised timeline.
Biden has staked out a goal of ending the war, which has cost trillions of dollars and more than 2,000 U.S. military lives as well as those of at least 100,000 Afghan civilians since 2001.
The deliberations come as the Taliban has capitalized on foreign troop reductions to expand its influence in contested provinces and surround cities and towns. Biden administration officials cite the raging violence as one aspect of the Taliban’s failure to comply with the agreement the previous administration signed with the militants last year in Doha, Qatar.
Some in the Afghan government, aware of their own vulnerability to military defeat by the Taliban, are eager for the United States to remain and pressure the militants to comply with the Doha deal.
Taliban leaders, at least publicly, have called on Washington to withdraw forces as it agreed, regardless of the change in administration. Mohammad Naeem, spokesman for the Taliban’s political office in Doha, said the United States has not officially communicated any change in the exit timeline.
“We have an agreement which is signed by the United States, a superpower,” and backed by the United Nations and the international community, he said. “They have to follow it.”