Desperate times call for desperate measures.

In centuries past, during a time of war a country could issue a license called a Letter of Marque and Reprisal that allowed privately owned ships to capture vessels of its enemy and keep the results from the sale of the captured ship and its cargo.  With this commission, these actions were considered privateering, instead of the free agents of piracy (as in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies).  Operating independently of the navy, the privateer captains’ willingness to risk and their desire for profit contributed to the weakening of their country’s enemy.

The Constitution grants to the U.S. Congress the right to grant these Letters of Marque, in the same section as the right to declare war and to call forth the militia.  Congress has not officially granted any Letters of Marque since 1815, although there was discussion of a new Marque and Reprisal Act against terrorists (instead of foreign countries) after 9/11.

This bill was not enacted, but recent actions suggest that some government entities may be operating as if they have a Letter of Marque – perhaps in the guise of an Executive Order, that circumvents Congress and the powers granted by the Constitution.

Secrecy is one of the key ingredients of diplomacy, as are covert intelligence-gathering operations.  They involve risk on a number of levels – to the individuals involved and to the government they represent – but are undertaken with a clear sense of the benefit they are expected to provide to our country.  It is when something goes wrong in these operations that the question of under whose authority they were undertaken, and their motive, becomes crucial.

When information about the 1985-87 Iran-Contra affair came out, with a hand-off of the proceeds from arms sales to Iran  in order to free hostages, being provided to anti-Communist Contras in Nicaragua, President Reagan told the American public about it, admitted that the original plan had deteriorated into an unacceptable situation, and he took full responsibility – even for any actions that he was unaware of.  In correcting this failure, Reagan provided a clear example of leadership.

The record of the current administration, however, shows an absence of this kind of leadership when actions and who is behind them is revealed.

In the past few years, the operation known as Fast & Furious’ strategy of letting guns from the U.S. “walk” to Mexican drug lords – proposed as a sting – instead resulted in American casualties at the U.S. border, then an attempt to frame a whistle-blower, and leading to the Attorney General becoming the first sitting member of the White House Cabinet to be held in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to disclose subpoenaed internal Justice Department documents – less than 5 months before the 2012 presidential election.  The President ordered a full investigation, although we have not yet seen the outcome. When we do, what country will we find this extra-legal operation served and what was its prize?

We are now learning the truth about another incident in which the colors being flown have changed so many times – 12 at the last count – that it’s hard to tell who is commanding the ship in question.  What is clear is that the American people were intentionally deceived about what happened on September 11, 2012 at the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya.  From neglecting to provide appropriate defenses on the anniversary of a significant attack on our country, to releasing as news that the cause of the attack was a video with the inflammatory title of “Innocence of Muslims” – while discrediting the President of Syria when he announced that it was a terrorist attack – who was the enemy that our government sought to weaken? And could it be true that the prize in the subsequent distractions was the deflecting of potentially damaging attention until after the 2012 presidential election?

There were no prizes here.  And we lost more than four irreplaceable diplomatic personnel that day.

Eight months later, the finger-pointing in the Benghazi investigation is picking up steam.  Did Congress authorize this action?  As a young Hillary Clinton asked during the Watergate investigation: what did the President know, and when did he know it?  And when did We the People know it?  Do we know it now?

Why does this matter?  Because we should know if it’s the prize that’s being towed into port behind our ship that will be condemned – or our country, for engaging in privateering.  Or – if we find that no Letter of Marque was issued by Congress – that we will be implicated in an act of piracy.  Will this example weaken our own country and its credibility, in the eyes of the world?

We know what Will Turner said he would do if he met a pirate, in the first “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie.  What will we do, if we find a pirate among ourselves?

We don’t want a government operating with letters of marque, we want a government with credibility – that commands international presence, provides accurate representation to its own citizens, and that supports its own Constitution and those who have sworn to defend it.  Not an entity seeking profit for just a subset of its leaders – political or otherwise.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.  How will we answer that call?  Maybe we should check everyone’s credentials, and what are their true colors.

During last Saturday’s radio show, we talked about characteristics we’d like to see in the new candidates who are stepping forward for 2014 campaigns in Georgia – about the need for Next Generation leadership and for candidates with the experience to represent us not only in our communities and our state, but to the rest of the world.

Experience – of how the world works, and what has been done to get us to this point – provides stability, be it in corporations, community organizations, and even our own families.  There comes to all of these a point when the senior members hand off that leadership to their successors, and recognize the younger leaders’ new ideas and their greater awareness of the way the world is changing.

There are signs that this hand-off is upon us.  And how we achieve it will demonstrate the abilities of the next generation of leaders to competently address our challenges and employ new ideas and technologies in doing it.  We will see this as they lead us away from the trenches and stalemates of years past, away from established programs that are unsustainable, and away from policies that do not serve and defend our country’s reputation and liberties.

We know the established leaders, those who have held office for some time, and in some cases their political allegiances have left them backed into a corner and defending the past – engaged in skirmishes of heckling while all of our resources are dwindling away.   Without strong leadership, there is nobody to lift this siege, with only different faces and names being substituted every 2-4 years.

The Next Generation understands our country’s need for a balanced federal budget.  The stalemates of recent years show us that the current generation of debt will need to be changed to have a successful future, with leaders other than those who have already had an opportunity in office, and whose decisions have brought us to this place.  In order for the Next Generation to not be dictated to from the grave, they have to move into leadership roles.

It isn’t about the candidate’s age cohort, nor is it about how often they Tweet.   It’s about individuals who can see what the problem is, and who are willing to do something about it – so that WE can do something about it.  We also talked on this past Saturday’s radio program about Paul Ryan’s recent budget proposal speech, in which he presented new ideas and tough decisions.  He told us: here’s where we are, here’s where we need to be, and here’s how to get there.  Not only did it propose a solution to the economic problem that’s at the heart of our country’s stagnation since 2008, he said: Here is the idea WE can work with.  Not “here is my idea, what I want to do”.  That is the difference between reactionary leadership from the past, and the leaders who are looking forward.

These leaders need to be individuals with worldwide experience, especially in the armed services, with an understanding of the price and cost of freedom.  For they will be representing not only the State of Georgia, but they will also stand for all of us as Congress addresses what’s going on around the world – what are threats and what are not threats – in the military, in the world’s financial turbulence, and at the heart of our country’s relationship between the federal government and states’ rights.   We need solutions for emerging issues, not dwelling on inertia, stalemates and heckling attacks across the aisle.

As we watch the candidates announce their 2014 campaigns, we need to look carefully at what they bring with them:  is it fresh ideas, that actually give us Next Generation leadership – that gives US a starting point and new ideas so WE can move forward with OUR problems?  We can’t expect a new outcome from an established individual who’s held a seat for a long time.  Will we see some fast-track new faces, for whom we’ll need to research their voting record and endorsements to see if they’re more likely to represent the voters or what the established interests are telling them to stand for?  What can such a candidate do – not only on behalf of the state of Georgia, but in providing leadership for our country – and identifying solutions for emerging issues, instead of dwelling on inertia, stalemates and heckling.  Because if the hecklers win, we all lose.

Our problems are solvable.  With the Next Generation, we can start with level ground and a call to action, not stagnating with divisive factions and polarizing reputations.  We have to believe that we can solve OUR problems, not those of longstanding political factions or the current administration’s distractions.  The solution has to be inclusive to get away from the stalemates and trenches.  Our future – and our ability to make it a positive future for our families and for our country – is up to us, and to the new leaders that will get us there.  And it starts now.