I think it's fairly obvious that the Mafia would never be able to survive if there was a large, concentrated, sustained effort to to get rid of their organization.
The Maxiprocesso attempted to satisfy two of those goals. One of the rather understated effects of it was police reform. But the spree of judicial assassinations that followed are what turned public sentiment in Sicily finally against the mob. It lost quite a lot of its power after that.
Their entire "business model" seems to depend on their not attracting to much attention or heat to themselves.
Yes, but in a more subtle way that people's Hollywood perceptions of organized crime don't often grasp. Organized crime lives and flourishes best in a climate of corruption, which means it's often very unclear for those of us (especially displaced Americans) who are the good and bad guys, and whom to trust. The reason the triumvirate of mob, government, and church held sway was an intricate system of checks and balances and the certainty that no one leg was entirely trustworthy or fit the stereotypes of good or evil.
As I said, the mafia in Sicily, when I was there, took a major hit when they lashed out ferociously and made the public see them more as criminals. That was hard to do before, because they were your uncles, cousins, and brothers-in-law, or there was some association like that.
...especially trusting someone like Oswald to never talk.
As I said, I was friends with some of these people, and I never earned much of their trust except toward ordinary friendly ends. I would certainly have never been let into any sort of inner circle, introduced to any of the
capi, or given any knowledge of any actual illegal activity. If the mafia is going to assassinate a head of state, they're not going to involve some outsider.
Of course, people, particularly criminals, do illogical things all the time, so it's impossible to say one way or the other.
Well, they do and they don't. Criminals can also act logically within the context of their assumptions, conditions, and expectations. Since these are what vary dramatically in many cases from what we as comfortable first-world professionals endure, some of their contemplated actions seem illogical when reasoned from our sphere.
This is what separates organized crime from petty criminals. There is a semblance of organization -- rules and order that seem abhorrent and brutal to us, but which are as developed as any others and punish indiscriminate, unilateral action. Cf. also historical pirates. So no, it is quite difficult to believe in a hypothesis that requires
mafiosi to play their dutiful Hollywood roles as unprincipled, simplistic thugs.
Yes, individual criminals often to illogical and irrational things, such as shoot the President from a nearby building.
