Not only are the mercenaries paid well, but they come from some of the poorest countries of Africa. And there's no future at home. I saw a NYT article interviewing some Mali young men, and at the end they asked the writer to put a good word in her article for Gadhafi, so he would be able to stay in power and, they hoped, hire more of them.

And Gadhafi has sponsored all sorts of improvements in those countries--as well as leading the OAS.    You can buy a lot of goodwill with as much oil money as he has.