That's not only the right response to the disaster; it's also the smart response. Representatives of democratic nations are not the only people on the ground in Bana and other parts of the country, there are plenty of opportunists here trying to recruit terrorists or drug traders. It's in America's interest to provide another option.
Traveling to this part of Pakistan, called the Northwest Frontier Province, means traveling backward in time. Scraping out a living of subsistence farming of rice and maize, plus a few livestock, the families here live as their ancestors had for centuries. Reached most easily by helicopter, the highlands near the Afghanistan border are home to tribesmen who harbor nothing but suspicion for the outside world. Until the earthquake hit, even the Pakistani Army was banned from the region by local leaders.
Dire need has now forced the men of Bana to accept strangers by the thousands, including many from America, and the impact of those outsiders could change this place forever. Cokie came with one group of newcomers, Save the Children, to see what had happened here and what's happening now before the harsh winter sets in.
Spend a day in these magnificent hills where hundreds of men line up to receive relief supplies coming in from around the world, and you never see a woman. That was a challenge for the rescue teams as they responded to the immediate emergency, and it will remain a challenge for the nonprofit organizations that are trying to provide shelter and sustenance.
The devastation from this earthquake covers more than 11.5 million square miles. With a few urban exceptions, most of the houses in that vast area are scattered on the hillsides and in the valleys at a good distance from each other, so it's difficult to round everyone up for rations of food and tools.
One reason for the isolation: the women may not be seen by anyone but their immediate families.
A young American hero, a mountain-rescuer from Washington State, arrived as a volunteer with Save the Children after the quake hit. Paul Charlton is trained in emergency medicine and was able to treat many of the injured and get many more to emergency hospitals, but it was his fiancee who dealt with the women, climbing in under their veils to assist them. Many women, including one who was pregnant and had broken both legs, simply refused to be seen by any doctor.
That same attitude keeps girls away from school. The Pakistani army colonel who heads disaster relief in Bana told us that less than 1 percent of the women and girls are literate. It's not much better among the men, where only about 12 percent are able to read and write. And now all of the schools have collapsed, so education will take place in the temporary camps set up to protect the mountain dwellers from the cold.
In one of those, Maira Camp, pitched on the banks of the storied Indus River, school started this week. About 500 children showed up, equally divided between girls and boys, many had never been in a classroom before. UNICEF is running the schools, Save the Children is providing supervised play space, the Finnish army supplied warm winter tents, and Cuban doctors offer medical help.
They are all there together in this ever-growing tent town of 3,000, built by Save the Children three weeks ago. Also in the camp: Al Rasheed Trust, condemned by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization with ties to Al Qaeda. Without the commitment of United States and other international money, it would be groups like Al Rasheed, with its history of social welfare work, left in charge.
Not only would that be harmful to U.S. interests, it would also be hurtful to the people of the region. As it is, they now have a chance.
With boys and girls in school, with families forced to come together, they have for the first time an opportunity to join the modern world and to make a life where Osama bin Laden would have no influence at all.
Steve Roberts' latest book is "My Fathers' Houses: Memoir of a Family" (William Morrow, 2005). Steve and Cokie Roberts can be contacted by e-mail at stevecokie@gmail.com.
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