The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has less than a week to strike a deal with Republicans, otherwise it will run out of money to pay millions of workers including American soldiers, but the ripple effects will be felt across the world and in particular Washington’s Western allies.

The current cap on the U.S. federal debt is $31.4 trillion dollars. That’s how much the world’s strongest economy has borrowed this year to pay off its bills.

The White House and the Republican controlled House of Representatives are stalling on talks to reach an agreement to raise the amount of money the U.S. can borrow.

The main bone of contention being argued in public between the two sides is that Biden wants to increase the amount of money Washington can borrow, while Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy wants to see some spending cuts first before raising the debt ceiling.

Caught in the middle are millions of Americans including federal employees, the military, those who rely on welfare benefits and medical patients on Medicare, as well as stock markets tied to Wall Street, all of whom are already on edge. Another fresh wave of selling hit European stock markets on Wednesday.

The Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that if the Biden Administration can not borrow more funds as of the end of May, the U.S. will not have enough money to meet its financial obligations.

In reality, the talks between the two sides have been stalled for political purposes so that Republicans can bring the Biden administration along with the Democrats down ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

At the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Biden admitted the devastating consequences for his re-election bid if the U.S. is unable to pay its bills, saying “because I am president, and presidents are responsible for everything, Biden would take the blame. And that’s one way to make sure Biden is not re-elected.”

If an agreement is not reached to raise the debt ceiling, the U.S. administration will default on its debts and the U.S. will enter uncharted territory as this is usually a formality to pass a higher debt cap in Congress and not raising the annual level of money the U.S can borrow will be the first time such a scenario has played out in the country

The current state of affairs is a strong indication of just how polarized U.S. Democrats and Republicans have become, that Washington has allowed this to drag on and potentially have a catastrophic knock on affect for Americans and cause major economic damage.

In the short-term, Moody’s Analytics has forecast that if no deal is made by June 1, stock prices will fall by almost a fifth, the U.S economy would contract into a recession, mass layoffs will be seen with at least seven million Americans out of work, while reports say 15 million U.S. army veterans and their families will be harmed.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has warned that a default would see “a substantial risk to our reputation with allies and security partners across the globe” who would questions “as to whether or not we will be able to execute (military) programs.”

There is a slow but certainly growing pattern in the West, where the executive branch bypasses parliament and takes matters into its own hands. This was seen in France where President Emmanuel Macron bypassed Parliament to raise the pension age despite nationwide protests and strikes by millions of French people against the deeply controversial move. Biden may declare a national emergency and raise the debt ceiling by himself.

Another major knock-on effect would be on the U.S. dollar as a global reserve currency that is slowly becoming a non-global currency. American allies have been using the U.S. dollar to settle trade transactions, which eases America settling its own bills.

The current demand for U.S. dollars absorbs America’s trade and budget deficits as foreign central banks are willing to hold their surpluss dollars in the form of U.S. treasury bonds. This has been overlooked by Congress since the Second World War as the U.S. can just print dollars as foreign central banks use them.

But the dollar is losing its role as global reserve currency: a direct result of Washington’s policies of sanctions and unilateralism over the past two decades, which has in turn convinced other countries that its actually quite risky to use American dollars or hold on to them because they could one day be subject to sanctions by the U.S. themselves.

Many regions in the world have seen how the U.S. can turn on countries that it once considered as allies.

The world is witnessing a rising number of nations settling their trade transactions in currencies, mostly local currencies, but not the U.S. dollar.

This is now posing a threat to the U.S. being able to settle its debts as Washington has been for a long time  seeing the rest of the world, in essence, financing its own debt with the U.S. dollar.

The swift system is used for trade transactions via mostly the U.S. dollar and, to a lesser extent, other Western currencies who have also joined the U.S. led sanctions regime against adversaries, such as Great Britain and Canada. International trading systems such as swift is now facing a challenge from many governments and global organizations such as BRICS, the five regional economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

As the U.S. seeks to raise the annual debt ceiling, it could find itself in quite a difficult place where it has to pay back back its debt (in its entirety) on its own.

In other words, the U.S. Congress could soon find itself having to lower the amount of money it borrows every year and not increase the debt ceiling.

Where that money will come from is up for debate. But it would be forced to come out of other budgets, and one of those is the $857.9 billion U.S. military budget that was passed for the fiscal year 2023.

The U.S. military has been rising every year, and, as the pattern over the past decade shows, is set to hit one trillion dollars very soon. Cutting back on the “defense” budget would see a major setback for America’s military adventurism abroad.

The U.S. military expenditure is much higher when other aspects are taken into account, for example, the more than $2.3 trillion it spent on the war and occupation of Afghanistan (and that was just one country the U.S. has invaded or militarily interfered in) or its nuclear weapons program.

The U.S. War economy comes at a time when Americans are suffering back at home from the dismal infrastructure, agriculture, medical care, suicide rates among teenagers and army veterans, mass shootings, etc, which the authorities have failed to address.

In the middle of this current crisis, where the politicians are speaking about how much money is needed to increase the debt ceiling, there is always money available for war.

And so the U.S., through its aggressive and unilateral foreign policies, has essentially shot itself in the foot.

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Speaking in a meeting with the visiting Russian Deputy Defense Minister for International Affairs Colonel General Alexander Fomin in Tehran on Saturday evening, he emphasized the development of bilateral, regional and international cooperation within the framework of the goals and national interests of the two countries as well as establishment of peace, stability and security in the region.

General Baqeri reiterated that Americans today confess that they have not been successful in the approach of unilateralism and creating a unipolar world.

Countering the common threats and cooperating in the field of common interests require more consultations which should be taken into consideration in the continuation of the development of cooperation, he underlined.

General Baqeri went on to say that the two countries have had successful cooperation with each other in confronting terrorists in Syria, adding that Syria still needs the continuation of these supports.

On the behalf of the Russia’s Defense Minister, Fomin invited Major General Baqeri to attend the meeting of heads of the defense institutions of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)’s member states in Moscow.

Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Fomin arrived in Tehran on Saturday at the head of a high-ranking military delegation to participate in the fourth meeting of the Joint Military Coop. Commission in Tehran.

Meanwhile on Suday, Baqeri underscored the high maritime security of the Persian Gulf region, saying there has been a significant decrease in the presence of extra-regional fleets in the strategic area as a result.

“The significant reduction of extra-regional fleets in the Persian Gulf indicates the lasting security that the Islamic Republic of Iran has established in the region,” Bagheri said on the sidelines of a visit to an airbase in the southern city of Bushehr.

“The fully-established security in the region shows the accountability of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has been ensured with round-the-clock aerial and naval patrols.”

The chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces pointed to the outcomes of the aforementioned security for residents in the Persian Gulf region, saying, “Under the ensured security in the Persian Gulf, we are witnessing the daily activities of people and coastal residents in the highly strategic province of Bushehr in the field of maritime trade and fishing, as well as activities in the field of oil and gas.”

Bagheri also announced the full readiness and high capability of the military and law enforcement units, including the Army, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and the Defense Ministry, to protect the country’s borders.

The Iranian military and political officials have on numerous occasions said Iran will never compromise on defending the country’s interests and resources, warning that the security of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz is a “red line.”

They said the security of the Persian Gulf region should be established by regional countries, adding that there is no need for the presence of foreign forces in the international waterway.

Iranian officials have also described Israel’s destabilizing activities as the main source of insecurity in the region, warning regional countries about the perils of allowing Tel Aviv to establish a foothold in the region.

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TEHRAN (Iran News) –Multiple issues plaguing the United States that could trigger violence on a wider scale have been reflected in new research which found that half of Americans believe a “civil war” will take place “in the next few years.”

Researchers from the University of California-Davis Violence Prevention Research Program and the California Violence Research Center have revealed that 50.1 percent of respondents to their survey are of the view that a civil war will occur soon.

According to the developers of the 2022 Life in America survey, 47.8 percent of respondents said they do not believe in the potentially violent scenario unfolding in the U.S.

The shocking number indicating half of Americans believe in a civil war over the next couple of years, will be of grave concern to American officials who have already witnessed the deadly insurrection at the heart of U.S. government and politics in Capitol Hill, Washington DC after protesters raided Congress.

Around 14 percent of those surveyed responded that they “strongly” or “very strongly” believe a civil war is imminent in their country, while 36 percent said they somewhat agree.

The research comes as the House select committee investigating the January 6 2021 insurrection by supporters of ex-President Trump held its final hearing of the summer on Thursday. The insurrection left five people dead, including a police officer, and more than 100 officers injured.

Trump watched the violence on television in his White House dining room and failed to take “immediate action in a time of crisis”, the investigation has heard. The committee has been told the former president was aiming to stop or delay the congressional certification of Biden’s election victory by not intervening.

The committee will reportedly publish its report on what led to the attack on Capital Hill, including the possibility of recommending charges against individuals involved, later this year.

The former U.S. President has regularly insisted that the 2020 presidential election was rigged and stolen from him. He has engaged in efforts to overturn the results of the vote at the state and federal levels.

He still maintains widespread support with a recent survey indicating the ex-President would defeat Biden if an election was held today.

The researchers cited five recent domestic issues in the United States as of late that “motivated” the study for the potential outbreak of even greater violence and unrest.

They firstly stated what the study views as a striking rise in violence, especially in firearm violence. From 2019 to 2020, the country witnessed an increase in homicide by 28 percent which was the largest single-year percentage increase ever recorded, according to the researchers.

Among all the violent killings that were officially registered in the year 2019, guns were used in 57.7 percent and that number increased to 62.1 percent in 2020, when 78.9 percent of homicides (19,995 of 25,356) and 52.8 percent of suicides (24,292 of 45,979) involved the use of guns.

The second factor the researchers took into consideration was the related issue of an unprecedented increase in firearm purchases. This huge rise, that grabbed the headlines, began with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in January 2020 and (except for a brief respite late in 2021), has continued through to June 2022.

From January 2020 through June 2022, background checks on firearm purchasers have averaged 46.6 percent above expected levels the research says, which it found to be an estimated 14.5 million extra background checks that have been conducted, of 45.7 million checks altogether.

That’s a lot of guns currently on the streets of the U.S. and certainly enough ammunition to wage a deadly civil war. The figure is potentially much larger as the number of firearms purchased on the black market is believed to be very high yet the exact amount is unknown, which makes the news all the scarier.

The third issue that researchers touched on is the growing uncertainty about the stability and value of democracy in the United States.
According to a Yahoo News-YouGov poll last month, about half of all Americans believed the United States might “cease to be a democracy in the future,”

There are many experts who argue the U.S. is not a democracy in the first place. Nevertheless, most Americans across the political spectrum are said to now perceive a serious threat to “democracy” in the U.S.

More than two-thirds of respondents perceived “a serious threat to our democracy,” and 88.8 percent believed it is very or extremely important “for the United States to remain a democracy” But at the same time, 42.4 percent agreed with the statement that “having a strong leader for America is more important than having a democracy”; 19.0 percent agreed strongly or very strongly to the latter.

At the same time, nearly 70 percent of adults, with very similar results for both parties that dominate U.S. politics – the Democrat and the Republican Party – agree that “American democracy only serves the interests of the wealthy and powerful.”

This is while around 20 percent of Republicans, conservatives, and voters for former U.S. President Donald Trump (and nine percent of Democrats, liberals, and voters for current President Joe Biden) disagree with the statement that “democracy is [the] best form of government.”

The fourth factor the researchers focused on was the increase in American “public opinion of extreme, false beliefs about American society.” Approximately one adult in five endorses the core beliefs of the Q-Anon ideology that “government, media, and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles” and (22 percent) that “there is a storm coming soon that will sweep away the elites in power and restore the rightful leaders”

This is while nearly one adult in three (32 percent), the research cites, endorses the assertion that “a group of people in this country [is] trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants.”

The fifth factor was the growing support among Americans for the use of violence to achieve political or social goals.

More than a third (36 percent) of American adults (56 percent of Republicans and 22 percent of Democrats) agree that “the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.” Nearly one-fifth of adults (18 percent) agreed that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”

The current research nationwide on the frequency and deciding factor on support for political violence in the U.S. is quite limited the study says. It cites the existing research that has been criticized on multiple grounds, which includes failures to define violence, to determine whether support for political violence reflects support for violence generally, and to determine whether those who endorse political violence are willing to engage in such violence themselves.

It states that there are many important and urgent questions that remain “insufficiently explored”, or unexplored altogether. And poses several important questions, such as how prevalent are support for, and willingness to engage in, political violence when that term is defined?

“The motivating premises for this survey were that current conditions in the U.S. create both perceived threats and actual threats to its future as a free and democratic society,” the researchers for the study wrote. “The findings bear out both premises.”

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Ever since the arrival and colonization of the Americas by Christopher Columbus, white colonists made multiple attempts to eradicate the natives and their culture in the United States and elsewhere. In the U.S., this included a number of wars waged and more recently it has been revealed that for decades, U.S. administrations operated Christian boarding schools with the goal of eradicating indigenous children of their languages and culture, an operation that is strikingly (but perhaps not surprisingly) similar to Canada’s residential school system. Ten million natives lived in the U.S. when Columbus arrived and that number today stands in the hundreds of thousands today, instead of what should have been hundreds of millions.

In Canada, abuse, neglect and even rape were rampant at these so-called schools, and the Genoa U.S. Indian Industrial School in Genoa, Nebraska was implementing similar strategies. By using government records, school documents and old newspaper archives the researchers have learned that at least 102 children died there between 1884, the year it first opened, and 1934, when it was shut down. Many of the kids died from diseases such tuberculosis, pneumonia, the flu and heart failure was another common cause of death – all down to medical negligence.

Judi Gaiashkibos, the executive director of the Nebraska Commission in Indian Affairs and also a natural citizen of the Ponca Tribe, told a Canadian news host “some other strange, unusual incidents were reported as accidental shootings, drowning, spinal paralysis and a freight car accident — [not] typical happenings at most schools in the world. So, I suspect that wasn’t an accident in some cases, and some kids may have committed suicide and some were killed when they were running away from the school.”

The investigation was conducted by the Genoa Indian School Digital Reconciliation Project; this collaboration involved the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the Genoa U.S. Indian School Foundation, descendants of survivors, and representatives from five Indigenous tribes in Nebraska.

So far, the Genoa Indian School Digital Reconciliation Project researchers have found the names of 54 children who died at the Genoa school. As for the others, they have confirmed gender, tribal affiliation and, in many cases, cause of death.
Gaiashkibos said, “we’re kind of the reverse of you [in Canada]. We have the names, the records, but we don’t have the cemetery where the children are buried.” Nobody knows how many students died at this government Genoa U.S. Indian Industrial School, but fears are growing because thousands of students are believed to have passed through its gates. Government documents have proved elusive or have been obscured to reveal an accurate death toll. Graves have not been found on the grounds yet.

The researchers have begun scanning the former school lands with ground-penetrating radar. “We’re probably going to have to do more surveying, which could take a long time on a big, huge campus like this. [It’s] hundreds of acres,” Gaiashkibos added.

For that to be conducted successfully, they will need more money and calls are growing louder that the federal government provides that funding. In July the Federal Government announced plans to launch an investigation into the history of Native American church-run boarding schools; which it funded from 1819 through the 1960s. The probe announcement was only made after news emerged of the grisly discoveries of children’s remains at residential schools in Canada.

Gaiashkibos says the purpose of the government-run schools “was to assimilate us, to turn us into farmers and laborers and domestic servants, essentially. I think that’s maybe from the settler standpoint, but from our standpoint, it was, you know, to eradicate our way of life, to destroy our language and our culture and break apart our families.”

The U.S. schools were self-sufficient, so the children are said to have been expected to carry out unpaid labor to keep things running. The children were denied from going home for any holiday to visit their own family, while during the summer, Gaiashkibos says they were “farmed out to work in white families.” They were forbidden from speaking their own language and if they were caught doing so they “were beaten, deprived of food, punished, made to kneel down on the ground for hours until your legs were numb. So, it was a real, sad, lonely place.” The executive director of the Nebraska Commission in Indian Affairs views those students as casualties of a war waged by the U.S. government against Native Americans to destroy their cultures and steal their lands. She added “They didn’t want the children to have their culture. And … most of them, in many cases, wouldn’t be returning to their homelands… I see them as soldiers of the last Indian war in America, a war to steal our lands, and they used our little children. And in war, some children die. So sadly, these are those children, our soldiers that died. And we’re going to do like the American government and find those children and honor those children and bring our soldiers the honor they deserve.”

There is no official data on how many boarding schools were operating in the U.S., how many children were taken away from their family, and how many never returned home. The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition has conducted its own investigation and estimates there were 367 boarding schools in the U.S., that is more than double the 139 residential schools in Canada. Because of that, experts suspect twice as many children were taken away from their homes in the U.S., and that twice as many may have died.

Between 1831 and 1996, Canada’s federal government took more than 150,000 indigenous First Nation children from their families and forced them to attend church-run, government funded residential schools. Conservative figures by experts say thousands of children died at the schools, and over the last year, First Nations across Canada have been using ground-penetrating radar to locate their remains. But the records that are needed to identify those remains are largely lost, scattered among different government agencies, or closely guarded by the Catholic Church.

A national inquiry revealed the extent of abuse and neglect the children faced in those schools. The Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) Commission of Canada has found evidence that 4,100 children died of disease, malnourishment, suicide and more, but says the true total is likely much higher. Many of the children remain unaccounted for.

The truth is now slowly unraveling that the story of indigenous children being deprived of their identity in such a brutal manner south of the border is pretty much the same. If the right time, energy and resources are exhausted, the U.S. administration’s investigation should reveal more details about the history of boarding schools. Washington should also, like Canada, conduct its own truth and reconciliation commission, something that will force Americans to reevaluate the country’s history. And finally current day students across the United States must be taught about those dark moments in their nation’s history, while public awareness on the matter should also be prioritized during the tenure of the Biden White House.

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