"Qadhdhafi's senseless [fill-in-blank] always has puzzled me, however."

Fixed.

You could stop after the first two words, really.

Well, it may be that I have always had a soft spot for the Guide (I have), despite his brutality, but most of his repression has made sense to me. Evil, but sensible.

The Anti Berber angle however, puzzles.

Could it be here the more "normal" irrationalities of mankind, simple unquestioning inherited bigotry?

I confess my ignorance here, but... On this type of issue, I have noticed that a focus on a specific section of the population is often the result of bias, rather than real targetting. That is, it is often the case that when some say "minority X has no rights in Arabdictatoristan", it could in fact be generally said about the whole population, "Arabdictatoristanians have no such rights anyway". So, is there really something specific about the Amazigh here?

Well, the Amazigh aren't an important constituency to him anyway, so why bother with appeasing them? It probably made more sense opinion-wise to (1) not change a set policy (2) court chauvinist sentiment among the majority. If even a small segment of the Arab population thought repressing Libyan Berbers is good, that's a net win for him.

One shouldn't underestimate the ideology factor either. The Green Book is very explicit about the importance of national cohesion, and refers to minorities as being failed nations.