The bin Laden as Robin Hood framing conflates distinct eras and moral categories

Evidence

This vision, comforting though it may be to those who hold it, is flawed at both ends. King John was not a democrat, and Robin Hood was not a terrorist. We live in a different world, and at a different level of reality. Those who cherish such delusions will sooner or later suffer a painful but salutary awakening. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1780