Wild West and Modern Conflicts

BBC reports that the US effort to locate and kill Osama Bin Laden was called Geronimo, a reference to an Apache of the late 19th and early 20th century.  He was a fierce fighter and unwilling to surrender to the forces of the United States.  Just how we are to take this appropriation of his name for our current counter-terrorism efforts is subject to more than one interpretation.  Is Bin Laden like him and thus hunted or are we now as fierce as he was?  In any case, as the BBC points out, we are reminded that old stories are carried forward in efforts to make sense of the new by rendering it less novel.  Doing so can also obscure what is different and give misdirection.