“‘I don’t see Islam as our enemy,’ Paul said. ‘I see that motivation is occupation and those who hate us and would like to kill us, they are motivated by our invasion of their land, the support of their dictators that they hate.’…

“‘After 9/11, (people said) ‘Oh yeah, it’s those very bad people who hate us,’ but 15 of (the hijackers) came from Saudi Arabia,’ said Paul. ‘One of the reasons they attacked us, is we propped up this Sharia government and the fundamentalists hated us for it.’…

“Paul cited a University of Chicago professor, Robert Pape, whose research argues that most of the suicide terrorism in the past 30 years was caused by military occupation. Pape’s research, funded by the Defense Department, shows that suicide bombings in Afghanistan went up one third after the Obama administration surged 30,000 troops into the country.

“‘(9/11) was one of the main motivations for getting your attention on why they hate us and want to kill us,’ he said. ‘You could send 20 million people over there and all it would do is make our problems worse.'”

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“‘To imply that we were the catalyst of the attack on 9/11 disparages the memory of those who lost their lives on that tragic day and is an insult to who we are as a people,’ said Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator. ‘Congressman Paul’s understanding of the enemy and why they have attacked us is shockingly misguided.’…

“‘Congressman Paul needs to realize that they hate us not for what we do, but for who we are. The terrorist attacks on 9/11 were not the first they executed against this country and, by our enemy’s own words, won’t be the last,’ he said. ‘The Congressman seems to see the enemy through the spectrum of nations, and not what it is – a radical movement founded within Islam that wants to destroy Western Civilization.'”

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Via the Shark Tank.