Libya Was Executed for Disobedience
The story of a state that fed itself, funded itself, and paid the price for saying no.
Most people alive today have no true sense of what unfolded in Libya in 2011.
The dominant narrative, repeated endlessly in Western media, painted Muammar Gaddafi (Muammar al-Qaddafi) as an evil tyrant whose removal was “necessary and righteous”. This version of events has become so entrenched that it rarely meets serious challenge. Yet a close historical examination forces us to confront uncomfortable questions about power, wealth, and international intervention.
Was Gaddafi’s removal about humanitarian protection? Or was it about undermining an independent leader who refused to subordinate his country to the geopolitical and economic interests of powerful Western states? The evidence leaves little room for doubt: Gaddafi was removed because he refused to bow to Western interests, not because anyone cared about human rights.
Libya under Gaddafi embarked on policies that challenged the very foundations of Western influence in the region. Healthcare was free and widely accessible. The state provided free or heavily subsidised electricity to citizens. Interest-free loans were available through state-owned banks. Newlyweds received significant financial support to buy a home. Mothers were given money at the birth of a child. Citizens received a share of national oil revenues, petrol was astonishingly cheap (USD 0.14c/litre), and many Libyans enjoyed a standard of living that compared favourably with neighbours and some Western countries. These were not incidental policies; they were central to Gaddafi’s vision of national self-reliance and social welfare. Programs like these cannot be dismissed as mere propaganda because they were documented by economic reports and contemporary observers at the time.
Most significantly, Gaddafi initiated the Great Man-Made River project, one of the largest civil engineering undertakings in human history.
