Obama braves lonely ground on Guantanamo

USA: President Barack Obama is betting that his popularity and the power of his arguments will sustain him on risky political ground on Guantanamo Bay that neither his critics nor supporters care to occupy.

Vowing to shut the "war on terror" prisoner camp within a year but to retain some elements of Bush-era military tribunals to try the most dangerous detainees, Obama Thursday tried to quell a debate that seems to be slipping from his control.

He blasted Republicans who brand him soft on terror, and liberals and civil libertarians who say he is betraying their hopes with a halfway house solution. "Both sides may be sincere in their views, but neither side is right," Obama said, speaking in the shadow of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution at the National Archives.

"The American people are not absolutist, and they don't elect us to impose a rigid ideology on our problems," said Obama, ever the pragmatist. Washington, Friday, AFP