Do Cartels Exist? A revisionist view of the drug wars

Well, on the surface sure. But I think the point is that there are gangs vying for supremacy in regions, but they don't control the ground, government organizations do. They're pawns in the games of people more powerful, and those people hold high positions of trust in those societies. The idea of an enemy that is really just a tool ensures that they can use violence with impunity and that it will go on indefinitely.

I think they're probably right. It's just a different way to frame what we see in front of us that makes the picture less murky. "Powerful drug cartels with sleazy politicians in their pocket" is not very different from "powerful politicians and military leaders controlling supply networks and militias", except it changes where the power truly lies. And if the problem never goes away no matter which trafficker you kill, because the people in government "taking the bribes" are still there, which one is closer to reality?

The traffickers like the reverence they get with the prevailing narrative. They like the flashy culture, the sense of power even unanswerable to governments, and the fear such apparent power instils. It's a narrative that's beneficial to them, even if they know the truth of the organizational structure, and I doubt many but those higher on the food chain do, they're likely to lean into it.

Well it's not just semantics. Defining an organizational structure more clearly enables you to target more effectively for victory. Witg the situation getting worse and no victory in sight, maybe looking at it from a different angle can help people see a clearer path to that victory, or at least see that victory is not an option.

er...how is it a semantic argument?

the claimed existence of this drives huge fractions of US foreign policy, where "foreign policy" definitely includes killing people, propping up/sabotaging foreign governments, and is a huge part of the justification for the the entire set of civil liberties abridgments and ruining of lives that's called "prohibition".