Objectively speaking the NATO campaign did more damage to Libya than Gaddafi would have had he stayed in power. The country is a kind of Somalia now with competing militias and weak to non-existent central control.

Liberals hate the idea of their various interventions not being inherently good and well-intentioned (which is why liberals never, ever talk about Libya anymore, even when we found out that the country now has African slave markets) because part of the liberal ideology is the pathology that we are the good guys who are always trying to do good things. But that's never been the case. Empires don't work like that. We do things that are in our interest and are only somewhat constrained by public opinion.