WHEN the statistics are added up, it will be found that Pakistanis have been the worst victims of 9/11 and the US military crusade targeting many Muslim states and people in the wake of that September act of terror. Whether it is in the number of dead as a result of terrorism - both at the hands of subnational actors; and the state terrorism that has been rained on Pakistans tribal belt through drone attacks; whether it is in economic costs incurred in terms of trade losses and investment opportunities forfeited after becoming a frontline state for the US; whether it is in terms of destabilisation of the countrys social fabric; whichever statistical framework is applied, Pakistans suffering has been the worst. The irony is that no Pakistani was involved in 9/11, but that is a fact the Americans paper over conveniently. The biggest price has been paid by the ordinary citizens of Pakistan, many of whom have been sold or rendered into the US captivity - be it Guantanamo Bay, the US mainland or Bagram base in Afghanistan. For the rest, they have seen their countrys rulers increasingly kowtowing before US neoimperialist demands. So it should not have surprised anyone to find Dr Aafia in the dock in a courtroom in New York City, where the trauma of 9/11 was probably most palpable, after having been battered, bruised and abused for an indefinite period in Bagram airbase, Afghanistan. For anyone who thought she would actually get justice, the jury decision on Wednesday should have cleared that little misconception about the US and its jury-based judicial system. Despite all evidence to the contrary, she was found guilty by the jury on seven counts. Yet on each charge the evidence of the defence was riddled with gaping holes. But justice had nothing to do with the issue. It was all about one more vengeful act for 9/11 The shame is that the Pakistani government chose to pussyfoot around the Americans on the Dr Aafia Siddiqui issue when they could have been more assertive and demanded her return home. The state has also made no effort to come clean on how she landed in US custody in Afghanistan and what has happened to all her children. After all, the US may also be guilty of murdering one of her children. But who will file a case of murder against the US military? We have watched a Pakistani woman effectively being killed slowly by the US government while the Pakistani state, a frontline ally of the US in its misguided war on terror, has chosen to do nothing beyond a few declaratory protests. Today Dr Aafia is not just one Pakistani victim of 9/11; through her, the whole nation stands abused and victimised for a crime they did not commit. As for the state, it has died for all but the ruling elite of Pakistan.