History is not a story the government would tell you
It doesn’t excuse current behaviour but it does explain it. Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.
In my experience Americans are also similarly disinterested in foreign policy and the world at large, so are invariably surprised when the crimes of empire come back to haunt them.
On the plus side, this disinterest and lack of historical knowledge is severely handicapping the current regime and hindering its worst instincts.
To be clear, America isn’t exceptional in this regard, it’s just more of the same. Similar things happened to the British Empire and is happening to the Russians now.
Hell, IRC when the first crusade happened in the 11th century, the Muslim world was largely oblivious to the religious nature of the conquests and seems to have thought it was just another Roman army being Roman. Fun fact: the Thai word for foreigner, Farang, likely originated at this time. People in the middle-east refered to the crusaders as Franks, because many were from what is now France or spoke Old French.