Walking down Pike Street downtown today, I saw a vendor hawking The Final Call---the black newspaper associated with the Nation of Islam. Seeing the headline ("Why the West Wants Libya's Leader Dead"), it was all I could do not to slug the guy in the face.

Overreaction? Consider this:

On June 8 in New York City, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), said there were indications that Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi had ordered the rape of hundreds of women during his violent crackdown on the rebels and that he had even provided his soldiers with Viagra to stimulate the potential for attacks. The ICC will most likely add rape to the list of war-crime charges already levied against Gaddafi. Rape, Moreno-Ocampo told reporters, is a new weapon for Libya's regime. "We had doubts at the beginning," he said, "but now we are more convinced. Apparently, [he] decided to punish, using rape." ...

So far, the only Libyan woman to go on record about her assault has been Iman al-Obeidi, who in March burst into Tripoli's Rix Hotel to tell foreign journalists she had been gang-raped by Gaddafi's forces. Though aid workers had hoped she might open the floodgates for other women to come forward, none have. (Al-Obeidi is now in Romania, seeking refugee status.) "The allegations are frequent and serious," says Sidney Kwiram, Libya researcher at Human Rights Watch, who says that in more than two months on the ground she was unable to find one woman who would speak on the record. "Research on rape is often challenging due to the shame and taboo, not just for the woman but for the whole family. It is particularly difficult in Libya because of the conservative nature of the society and the hyperpoliticized environment we are operating in."

Rape as a weapon of war is inexcusable, pervasive, and---as the stories coming out of Libya attest---among the most difficult war crimes to document and prosecute.