Reply #38: Qaddafi was a "socialist dictator". People do tend to forget the first part.

[Xithras]

Qaddafi didn't, and he was a serious socialist right up to the end. In fact, when the protests first started, he tried to buy the Benghazi protesters off with $4 billion in free new government built housing. This wasn't a one-off thing. Most modern Libyan housing was built by the government at little or no cost to the residents. Lots of other things were free too...healthcare, education through the university level, etc. Major industry was either state owned, or heavily state-regulated with heavy taxation.

Qaddafi's problem is that he wanted to build a socialist utopia, and wanted to empower all of Africa so that it wouldn't be under the thumb of the west, but he couldn't quite bring himself to actually give up his own power and he was brutal to those who opposed him. He saw opposition to HIM as opposition to his socialist ideals, and an attack on the people themselves. His ego inflated to the point where he saw himself as an essential part of Libyan socialism.

If you had to compare him to other leaders in history, Stalin would probably be the closest fit. On one hand he was genuinely concerned about the people and actively ran his country in their interests. On the other hand, he saw ANY opposition to the state as an attack on the people themselves, and had no problem brutally repressing that opposition.