Here’s a grim passage from the Guardian’s obituary of Saddam Hussein (hat tip, Andrew Sullivan):

Saddam was born in the nearby village of Owja, into the mud house of
his uncle, Khairallah Tulfah, and into what a Tikriti contemporary of
his called a world "full of evil". His father, Hussein al-Majid, a
landless peasant, had died before his birth, and his mother, Sabha,
could not support the orphan, until she took a third husband.

Hassan
Ibrahim took to extremes local Bedouin notions of a hardy upbringing.
For punishment, he beat his stepson with an asphalt-covered stick.
Thus, from earliest infancy, was Saddam nurtured – like a Stalin born
into very similar circumstances – in the bleak conviction that the
world is a congenitally hostile place, life a ceaseless struggle for
survival, and survival only achieved through total self-reliance,
chronic mistrust and the imperious necessity to destroy others before
they destroy you.

The sufferings visited on the child begat the
sufferings the grown man, warped, paranoid, omnipotent, visited on an
entire people. Like Stalin, he hid his emotions behind an impenetrable
facade of impassivity; but he assuredly had emotions of a virulent kind
– an insatiable thirst for vengeance on the world he hated.

   I can’t help but think about Confucius, who emphasized the importance of moral education.  If a child learns brutality when young, he will practice brutality when old.  Confucius told us to "cherish the young" and to cultivate our humanity in our daily lives.  The pathologies of Saddam Hussein are negative confirmation of the wisdom of Confucian compassion.

    I don’t want to put all the responsibility on parents.  Obviously, even children who have been lovingly nurtured by good parents can still do bad things; there is a point for every individual when personal responsibility and agency must take charge over family ties.  But the abuse and brutality of Saddam’s "family" life seem clearly relevant to his later career. 

    Cherish the young.