Transcript: Ron Paul on Hannity & Colmes after the May 15 debate

[Fox News, Special Edition of Hannity and Colmes, 2007-05-15]

SEAN HANNITY: Ron, I want to go back to this exchange you had with Mayor Giuliani here for just a second. Are you suggesting the United States of America caused the attack on 9/11?

RON PAUL: No, I think that's a cop-out --

HANNITY: Our policies?

PAUL: When people imply that, what you're saying is that if you don't endorse my foreign policy, you're un-American, you're un-patriotic --

HANNITY: I'm not saying that, I've never said anything like that. I don't say that. You are suggesting --

PAUL: Not you, no, but I think that was the point in the debate. That if I didn't endorse this foreign policy, you turn it around, or he turned it around --

HANNITY: I'm not saying that, but what specifically then are you saying? Are you suggesting that our policies are causing the hatred of people that would cause them to want to kill us?

PAUL: I think it contributes significantly to it. And this is exactly what our CIA tells us. And anybody who's done any research on this has found out --

HANNITY: What have we done to cause the attack? What did America do to cause the attack on 9/11?

PAUL: Ok. The Americans didn't do anything to cause it, but policies over many years caused and elicited hatred toward us so somebody was willing to commit suicide. For instance, the occupation with our military troops on their holy land in Saudi Arabia. Bombing a Muslim country for 10 years, putting on sanctions that killed hundreds of thousands of people, so that caused the anger.

HANNITY: Are you saying then that the world has no moral obligation, like in the first Gulf War, when an innocent country's being pilaged, and people are being raped and murdered and slaughtered, or in the case of Saddam, he's gassing his own people, are you suggesting we have no moral obligation there? Do you stand by and let that immorality happen?

PAUL: We have, on numerous occasions.

HANNITY: You support that?

PAUL: We have, on numerous occasions. If we feel strongly about it, why don't we declare war --

HANNITY: If a woman's being raped do you stand by and do nothing there either?

ALAN COLMES: We're almost out of time, but the fact is the Reagan administration stood by while the Kurds were being gassed, it happened in 1988, we didn't do anything --

HANNITY: We didn't do anything about it, for how many years?

PAUL: And what did we do with Pol Pot, what did we do with Moscow, what did we do at the time? We stood by while they did it to their people.

HANNITY: We got it, Ron, you would stand by and do that, I would not.

PAUL: No, you --

HANNITY: I think that's immoral.

COLMES: Hey, hey, hey --

PAUL: Well, would you have the courtesy to ask the Congress to declare war? Would you follow the Constitution?

COLMES: [laughs, claps]

HANNITY: We did declare war. The authorization, use of force directive --

PAUL: That is not a declaration of war.

COLMES: We gotta run, guys.

HANNITY: There's no place in the constitution that says specifically what language has to be used --

COLMES: The Kurds were gassed, and we stood by for years, until --

PAUL: We gave them the gas.

COLMES: Until we could get an excuse.

PAUL: We gave them the gas.

HANNITY: Listen, we are not responsible for what happened on 9/11. We're not responsible.

PAUL: A non-interventionist foreign policy is very attractive to the American people.

COLMES: [talking over Hannity and Paul] They're gonna keep debating this. More on the other side of the debate. Keep texting us your vote to 36988. More to come, on this special edition of Hannity and Colmes.