A thread:

Demonized and ridiculed by the west, including much of the "left", for decades, Gaddafi met his end at the hands of NATO and their lackeys on this day, in 2011. Libya was one of the most prosperous African nations under him. Today, it is a hub for the slave trade.

Under Gaddafi, housing was a human right in Libya. Education and healthcare were free and universally available.

Gaddafi carried out the world's largest irrigation project. The Great Manmade River was designed to make water readily available to all Libyan’s across the entire country. Gaddafi famously called it "The Eighth Wonder of the World" and I'm inclined to believe him.

Any Libyan who wanted to start a farm was given a house, farmland, livestock and seeds by the state. Additionally, mothers with newborn babies were given a bursary of 5000 USD for herself and the child.

Electricity in Libya was free, and gas was cheap - hovering at around $0.14 USD per liter.

Before Gaddafi, only 25% of Libyans were literate. This figure was brought up to 87% with 25% earning university degrees.

So why was Gaddafi killed?

He was killed because the west, NATO (and let's not excuse Hillary Clinton for her role here) cannot stand to see an African nation become prosperous and independent. Gaddafi helped Libya become a sovereign self-sufficient nation.

Before the fall of Tripoli and his untimely demise, Gaddafi was trying to introduce a single African currency linked to gold. Gaddafi wanted to introduce and only trade in the African gold Dinar – a move which would have thrown the west's economy into chaos.

The Dinar was widely opposed by the ‘elite’ of today’s society. African nations would have finally had the power to bring themselves out of debt and poverty and only trade in this precious commodity. They would have been able to finally say ‘no’ to external exploitation.

Prior to the US-led bombing, Libya had the highest Human Development Index, lowest infant mortality and the highest life expectancy in all of Africa.

Under Gaddafi’s unique system of direct democracy, traditional institutions of government were disbanded and abolished, and power belonged to the people directly through various committees and congresses.

Far from control being in the hands of one man, Libya was highly decentralized and divided into several small communities that were essentially “mini-autonomous States” within a State. These autonomous States had control over their districts and could make a range of decisions...

... including how to allocate oil revenue and budgetary funds. Within these mini autonomous States, the three main bodies of Libya’s democracy were Local Committees, Basic People’s Congresses and Executive Revolutionary Councils.

The fundamental difference between western democratic systems and the Libyan Jamahiriya’s direct democracy is that in Libya all citizens were allowed to voice their views directly in hundreds of committees attended by tens of thousands of ordinary citizens.

Far from being a military dictatorship, Libya under Mr. Gaddafi was Africa’s most prosperous democracy. On numerous occasions Mr. Gaddafi’s proposals were rejected by popular vote during Congresses and the opposite was approved and enacted as legislation.

Today, after US intervention, Libya is home to the world’s largest loose arms cache, and its a transit zone for Tuareg separatists, jihadists who forced Mali’s national military from Timbuktu and increasingly ISIS militiamen led by former US ally Abdelhakim Belhadj.

A proud bedouin, he endured the mockery of the west by appearing at the UN wearing traditional bedouin clothes, and famously pitched a bedouin tent inside an estate owned by Donald Trump prior to his famous UN speech.