Perspectives.

"Stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty." U.S. President George W. Bush, in a speech where he called past U.S. policy of supporting nondemocratic Arab leaders a failure

"If they want to export democracy through wars, we do not want it." Thirty-seven-year-old Syrian worker Ali Rida, reacting in Damascus to the speech

"We want to remind this town that we have teeth and claws, and we will use them." Lt. Col. Steven Russell, of the Fourth Infantry Division, after American troops blasted Iraqi homes and a warehouse suspected of being insurgent hideouts in retaliation for the shooting down of an Army Black Hawk helicopter outside Tikrit Friday

"We had said we would send [troops] if our contribution would be of use. We saw that this is not the situation." Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, on his country's decision not to send peacekeeping troops to Iraq

"I did not shoot--not a round, nothing. I went down praying to my knees--that's the last thing I remember." Jessica Lynch, the Army supply clerk that the Pentagon initially said had kept fighting until her ammunition ran out. ...