There is more and more explicit news showing that Gaddafi worked closely with the CIA from 2002 onwards. Gaddafi — the little gangster — blundered by letting the U.S. — the big gangster — get too close. The U.S. had been keeping the pressure on Gaddafi for decades. He wanted out from that pressure. Being a long-lived ruler, a socialist, a nationalist, an African, and reaching an older age, he actually wanted, in his own dominating way, to do some good for Libyans, and he had to get out from under U.S. pressure to do that. He renounced nuclear ambitions and got into bed with the CIA. This he calculated would help him control Libya and keep the lid on the jihad-minded groups that wanted to overthrow him.
Gaddafi blundered. Such benevolence toward Libyans and independence from the West, and ideas of raising Libya’s share of oil revenues, and ideas of pan-African unity and currency (even golden), and ideas of closer ties with non-western nations, didn’t sit well with the Big Gangster and its NATO clique of satellite gangsters who always had painted him as a dangerous clown and resented his presence. The West requires conformity. It gets very uncomfortable with independent visions, independent visionaries, neutrals, and political systems, persons, and groups that do not link into and fall under its control system and alliances. The Arab Spring provided the opportunity for the Western gangsters to disgrace themselves fully and publicly and dislodge Gaddafi.
All the little gangsters of this world are taking note. Chavez is bringing his gold back home. Others will be far more wary of letting assets pile up in Western banks where they can be frozen and stolen. The other bigger gangsters of this world like Russia, India, and China will not fail to draw the appropriate lessons from this episode either, inasmuch as it occurred under a Democrat and follows hard upon the heels of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan instigated by Republicans and supported by both parties.
