Who would you rather be arrested by?

With Blair now saying that he thinks both sides wanted "an early resolution" to the stand-off over the fifteen captured UK sailors, it's a sobering thought that British residents are treated more humanely in the hands of Iranians than they have been in the hands of Americans.

And yet, if the pictures being beamed from Iran are not misleading then this is an undeniable fact. The pictures from Iran have not featured orange jump suits, the sailors have not appeared shackled. At all times they appear to be relaxed and in good spirits.

This contrasts rather sharply with the kind of treatment being meted out in Guantanamo Bay as described recently by Bisher al-Rawi, who spent four and a half years there without being charged.

Yesterday Mr Rawi, 39, said he had been through a horrific experience and talked of the "hopelessness" and "extreme isolation" of other British residents still held by the US without charge or trial.

"After four years in Guantánamo Bay, my nightmare is finally at an end. The hopelessness you feel in Guantánamo can hardly be described. You are asked the same questions hundreds of times. Allegations are made against you that are laughably untrue, but you have no chance to prove them wrong. There is no trial, no fair legal process. I was alleged to have participated in terrorist training in Bosnia and Afghanistan. I've never been to Bosnia and the only time I visited Afghanistan was thanks to the hospitality of the CIA in an underground prison ... outside Kabul."

It is simply shocking to me that, after six years of George Bush in power, certain British residents would be much better off being arrested in Iran rather than taken into US custody. In Iran there has been talk of putting these sailors on trial for espionage, but at least a trial was proposed. People swept off to Guantanamo Bay languish there for years, with no trial in sight.

And, even when a military commission is held, as in the recent case of the Australian David Hicks, the process falls far short of what one should expect from a nation that used to be regarded as "the world's policeman".

Hicks began the day with three lawyers - his military defense counsel, Major Dan Mori, and two civilians - but within hours he was down to one and pleading guilty to a single count of material support for terrorism, a crime that is normally prosecuted in federal court.

First to go was the assistant defense counsel. The judge, Ralph Kohlmann, unsure whether a civilian government employee could serve as defense counsel, decided not to give the defendant the benefit of the doubt and provisionally dismissed her.

The response from Hicks: "From my understanding, I just lost a lawyer."

Next up was Joshua Dratel, chief defense counsel for Hicks for several years. He was also dismissed by the judge, because while he agreed to abide by all "existent" rules, he refused to agree to "all" rules for the tribunal without first knowing what those rules stated. "I'm shocked because I just lost another lawyer," said Hicks, and counsel number two left the courtroom.

A highlight of the day was the judge's fashion lesson, when he explained the nuances of "business dress" to Hicks, who was wearing a short-sleeved khaki prison garb. The judge suggested the former kangaroo skinner choose his preferred combination of jacket, tie, and button down shirt before the next proceeding: Such proper attire would ensure that Hicks was adequately protected by the presumption of innocence.

But if Hicks, already detained for over five years, thought that this presumption carried little weight, who could really argue? After all, he had just watched his two civilian defense counsels barred from representing him, and every substantive motion denied in proceedings that had barely begun. He might reasonably have wondered what chance he had of receiving a fair trial when judge, jury and remaining counsel all report to the same executive that once lumped him together with the "vicious enemies" and "killers" housed at Guantánamo Bay.

So, one's "trial", if one is lucky enough to be granted such a thing, is conducted in such a manner that one is almost guaranteed to be found guilty.

All of us knew on September 11th that America would be changed by this experience, but few of us could have foreseen how far Bush would take her from the values that we all believed defined the US as a nation.

If you had told me then that the US would suspend Habeas Corpus, I would have thought you a fool. And yet, with the Military Commissions Act of 2006, Bush did precisely that.

If you had told me that the US Senate would attempt to find ways to legalise torture I would honestly have thought you a madman. And yet that is precisely what they did.

When he finally leaves office, George Bush will leave a very different America to the country he first took charge of. And tragically, he will leave an America that has a legal system with such a shocking disregard for basic legal principles that certain people would be better off being arrested in the Middle East than in the United States.

Six years ago I couldn't even have typed that last sentence as it would have seemed so ludicrous. But this is where he has brought us to.

Bush has sought to defend America's values by abandoning them. That is genuinely shocking.

Tags: Bush, Guantanamo Bay, Iran, 15 captured sailors, UK, Blair, Ahmadinejad