Cynical Nation

Reading some media outlets, it's easy to believe there are no National Guard troops anywhere near the Gulf States because they've all been sent to Fallujah or some damn place.

The good news is that we seem to have an adequate reserve to do the job.

Florida National Guard special forces were leaving Tuesday to perform search and rescue missions in Mississippi in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. They are a part of the nearly 124,000 Guardsmen across 17 states available to help out Katrina's victims, officials of the National Guard said Tuesday.
...
Despite a heavy deployment of National Guardsmen to Iraq and Afghanistan, more than enough troops are on hand to assist with safety, security and relief efforts in areas impacted by Hurricane Katrina, a spokesman for the Guard said.

We all wish they'd get there sooner, but military deployments are nontrivial endeavors, even domestically. It's not quite so simple as getting a phone call from the president and hopping into your Humvees and driving. Massive coordination efforts and communication channels have to be established, as do supply chains and chains of command. In this case, all of this has to happen in an area to which there is extremely limited conventional access and constantly shifting conditions and needs on the ground (or what there is of it.)

Help, however, is on the way.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday that 1,400 National Guard troops per day are being sent in to control looting and lawlessness in New Orleans, quadrupling the regular police force in the city by the weekend.

Already, 2,800 National Guardsmen are in the city to help local police since Hurricane Katrina produced devastating floods in New Orleans, Chertoff said at a news conference with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Another 1,400 Guard troops and military police units are being added daily, he said.

This is good news. We Americans are (rightly) rather fond of civilian rule here at home, as reflected in the Posse Comitatus Act, which forbids the military from involvement in domestic law enforcement duties. There are, however, exceptions in extreme circumstances, and this one certainly qualifies.

It's also worth mentioning that the Guard has reserves itself. Since the Guard is always susceptible to being nationalized, individual states have State Defense Forces which are strictly under control of the governor, to act in such capacities when the NG has been nationalized.

UPDATE: Much more here.