Can't open your link, but it wasn't
Qaddafi, for all his weaknesses, introduced progressive measures and was met with resistance - he eventually became a liability.
The West would not accept progressive policies that did not suit their own interests and brutally suppressed them
They opposed Nasser's nationalising of the Suez Canal, they engineered a coup to remove Nkrumah in the former Gold Coast, (Ghana) and they almost certainly engineered the assasination of Patrice Lumumba in The Congo - that's how it worked - if your face didn't suit Western interests, you went and it didn't matter what yuour replacement's human rights attitude was - Papa Doc Duvalier, in Haiti, Hitler-loving Marshal Kee in South Vietnam, the Contras in El Salvador... all "monsters, but our monsters".
I've recommended a book before - I doubt if you took may advice, and you won't now, but I suggest 'Listen Yankee', by American sociologist, C Write Mills   
He describes how America's opposition to social reforms in Cuba turned a social revolt into a revolution.
These poorer countries need to find their own salvation
Finally gt to open your link to the opinion (only) of American establishment writer's Ellen Brown - opinion only
It is interesting to have quoted something from 'The Ecologist' founded by teh son of notorious billionaire, Jimmy Goldsmith.
Tnat't the place everybody should go for unbiased political opinion !
and you call me naively uncritical!!!
Libya's decline and downfall came long, long before Hilary Clinton and the American election   
What the writer describes is the corpse of a country with principles, not why it died
We could have helped the Libyan protesters achieve a fairer system - instead, we profited on their problems and were quite happy to see Qaddafi's son step into his shoes and continue the dynasty.
All of these states need to be examined in historical context if we are to understand them - in the meantime, a humanitarian stance has fo fill the gap.
We owe these countries far more than they owe us.
Jim Carroll