I'm myself beginning to wonder what's holding up the rescue effort. From what I've seen the reports of civil unrest in NO have been greatly exaggerated. And even if there was civil unrest, why haven't they sent in the military to take care of things? Like you said we had rescue assets in fricking Indonesia faster than in New Orleans! People are dying of thirst at the New Orleans convention center which is not even flooded. Why can't the National Guard airlift water there? Is there anyone in charge of the whole operation and coordinating logistics etc.
Mrs. Warchild thinks that the middle class people ran while the running was good, and there's only welfare types left in NO, now, so who cares. From the rabid responses I've seen on FR, she might be right.
The problem is we have too many of our assets deployed outside the country, there's little or no leadership coming from Washington (despite the canned speeches in the Rose Garden), and NO ONE ever thought it would be this bad.