It is said that somone who is abused turns into a person very much like his/her abuser, and is often unaware of it.

I always thought that such an analysis smacked of "excuses" for the victim's subsequent aberrant behavior.

Now I'm not so sure. Evil does beget evil, and the harm done to one person is often reflected by the victim's subsequent choices and behaviors.

Perhaps he learns to protect himself in the only way he sees possible--by imitating the way his abuser acted, as if one evil would cancel out the other, perhaps.

Anyway, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. pointed out, it takes great courage and great love to break the cycle of evil, to become truly non-violent, to love your enemy (you're not required to like him).