Nearly all dictators do some beneficial civil works and other actions though. After all how else can they keep the population just happy enough to avoid rising

Nearly all dictators do some beneficial civil works and other actions though. After all how else can they keep the population just happy enough to avoid rising up? You're also assuming that the GMMR would not have been commissioned by another Libyan government, and perhaps even been completed more efficiently, had Gaddafi not seized power and held onto it for decades. While NATO's bombing of the Brega plant was controversial, it was in my view justified by Gaddafi's forces staging rocket launchers at the location. If you're staging active military assets inside civilian locations, and they're part of hostilities, those locations lose their protection under international law. The Brega plant was also not critical to the ongoing operation of the GMMR, as there was a second plant at Sarir that was able to make the pipe sections and had sufficient capacity to handle maintenance and sustainment needs.