Gaddafi was a bad man who killed and raped many innocent people. He would've used his Airforce to do exactly what Assad did and barrel bombed his own people to stay in power in the face of the Arab Spring.

Destroying that Airforce was one of the best things Obama and Clinton did. They should've immediately done the same thing in Syria, if they had we'd all be in a better position right now.

Prior to 2011, slavery and human trafficking were already major issues in Libya, though the full extent was not as widely reported. Here are some key points about slavery in Libya before the 2011 uprising:

• Libya was a transit point for migrants from sub-Saharan Africa attempting to reach Europe, leaving them vulnerable to trafficking networks.[1]

• The U.S. State Department's 2010 Trafficking in Persons Report noted "isolated reports that women from West and Central Africa were forced into prostitution in Libya" and that "migrants from Georgia were subjected to forced labor in Libya."[1]

• Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International documented cases of migrants being arbitrarily detained, tortured, and subjected to forced labor in Libya's detention centers before 2011.[1]

• Libya's laws against human trafficking were not adequately enforced, and the government did little to prosecute traffickers or protect victims prior to 2011.[1]

• The trans-Saharan slave trade routes that passed through Libya facilitated the trafficking and exploitation of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, though the full scale is unclear due to lack of data.[2]

So while open slave auctions were not as widely reported before 2011, the lawlessness, lack of government oversight, and Libya's position on migration routes allowed human trafficking and exploitation of migrants to persist as major issues even under Gaddafi's rule.[1][2] The chaos after 2011 exacerbated these pre-existing problems.

Citations: [1] Slavery in Libya - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Libya [2] [PDF] The Social and Economic History of Slavery in Libya (1800- 1950) https://pure.manchester.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/54580088/FULL_TEXT.PDF [3] Libya's Modern Slavery and the Politics of Denial https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/libyas-modern-slavery-and-the-politics-of-denial/ [4] The return of slavery in Libya - Grow Think Tank https://www.growthinktank.org/en/the-return-of-slavery-in-libya/ [5] High Commissioner for Refugees Calls Slavery, Other Abuses in ... https://press.un.org/en/2017/sc13094.doc.htm