I don’t think we can say, since it’s possible (likely?) that his premises aren’t even true.
Israel has already trotted out all of the same “mistakes were made” rhetoric, and certainly if they haven’t already, they will state that they’ll try to learn from it to make changes. So there’s really no difference as far as that goes
The biggest difference I see between the incidents is only relevant to Americans - then it was our government controlling the narrative at home, and now it’s a foreign government, failing to control the narrative abroad.
I have little doubt that the narrative about Gaza that Israelis are being fed now is roughly the same as the narrative Americans were being fed about Iraq and Afghanistan, which at least leaves the possibility that the actual underlying realities were and are also roughly the same. And if so, what Kirby is actually doing is not comparing the incidents and responses in and of themselves, but essentially just playing off of the differences between the version the people at home get and the version outsiders get - depending on Americans actually believing the American rhetoric then, even as they don’t believe the Israeli rhetoric now. That’s really the only way you end up with the notion that America sincerely did regret it and admit to it and set about making changes, rather than just, as Israel is doing now (from an outside perspective) paying lip service to all of that.
So what he’s actually possibly demonstrating, certainly inadvertently, is that the US was just as full of shit then as Israel is now.
I don’t think we can say, since it’s possible (likely?) that his premises aren’t even true.
Israel has already trotted out all of the same “mistakes were made” rhetoric, and certainly if they haven’t already, they will state that they’ll try to learn from it to make changes. So there’s really no difference as far as that goes
The biggest difference I see between the incidents is only relevant to Americans - then it was our government controlling the narrative at home, and now it’s a foreign government, failing to control the narrative abroad.
I have little doubt that the narrative about Gaza that Israelis are being fed now is roughly the same as the narrative Americans were being fed about Iraq and Afghanistan, which at least leaves the possibility that the actual underlying realities were and are also roughly the same. And if so, what Kirby is actually doing is not comparing the incidents and responses in and of themselves, but essentially just playing off of the differences between the version the people at home get and the version outsiders get - depending on Americans actually believing the American rhetoric then, even as they don’t believe the Israeli rhetoric now. That’s really the only way you end up with the notion that America sincerely did regret it and admit to it and set about making changes, rather than just, as Israel is doing now (from an outside perspective) paying lip service to all of that.
So what he’s actually possibly demonstrating, certainly inadvertently, is that the US was just as full of shit then as Israel is now.