Giuliani on Saddam's Eternal Torment

According to news reports, Rudy Giuliani

said Friday that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is paying an eternal and deserved punishment for his brutal life's work.

"You sure wouldn't want to be where Saddam Hussein is, where we helped put him," Giuliani said during a campaign stop in eastern Iowa in which he praised President Bush's war on terrorism but acknowledged that mistakes have been made in Iraq.

It's one thing to say (correctly) that Saddam did great evil, and that his removal is in itself a great good -- even to call our invasion an instrument of God's justice on behalf of Saddam's past and future victims, and even (most questionable but still defensible) to accept his execution as the only way to protect Iraqi society against any attempt of his to retake power (cf. Evangelium Vitae para 100).  But Giuliani's further step into the territory of eternal reward or punishment seems entirely unedifying, especially when, as the story indicates, he crows proudly about how we sent the wrongdoer to his ultimate torment.  For one thing, politicians ought to stick to the issues of earthly justice (even if they assert, as they of course may, that these are informed by God's revelation).  And If they choose to expound on the ultimates, and implicitly claim to do so as Christians, they ought to communicate a sense of sadness about the eternal lostness of any of God's creatures, even if the lostness comes from a death that was necessary for the protection of others.

Then get a load of Giuliani's next moral argument to the Iowans:

During a town-hall meeting with some 100 people, the former New York city mayor was asked to compare what Saddam and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld did in the war. Giuliani paused before answering.

"Where is Donald Rumsfeld?" Giuliani said. "He's alive, writing a book and living the good life with his family."

He compared that to Saddam, who was hanged.

Ah yes, the victor was in the right -- a wonderful line of moral reasoning.  Of course Rumsfeld is not comparable morally to Saddam (faint praise as that is).  But we should all, including Rudy Giuliani, agree that the criterion for that moral distnction is not who survived and didn't survive the war.  Just an off-the cuff-answer?  Maybe, but maybe also revealing about how Giuliani thinks (or doesn't).

If this is how Giuliani hopes to recapture with traditionalist Christians the points he's lost by being pro-choice, I sure hope it won't work (but see the reported "cheers and applause" he received)

Tom