Yes. It will indeed humiliate the image of America in the eyes of many abroad. But there will also be great stories of American love, guts and heroism, too. Still, unfortunately, many overseas will wonder, and some ask me, why we are spreading order around the world, and have these pockets of disorder (i.e., 'looters'), within our own borders.
The questions from Japanese are particularly poignent, for example "Mr. (AmericanInTokyo), I saw some of bad people stealing from others and from stories after the big storm over there in the US. Why did they do this? How could they do this? I was shocked."
Similar sentiments by my Aussie mates.
They are shocked!
Tell your interlocutors that America is a free country, and thus in it you see man at his best and at his worst.
With the former we get scientific genius, the wholesale invention of many modern industries, overwhelming response to global distress (How quickly the tsunami response is forgotten!), bearing any burden in defense of lberty, accepting with equanimity all the world's people (from Japan and everywhere else) as our citizen equals, tremendous social entrepreneurship, etc. With the latter we get looting in a time of crisis, the world's most vibrant pornography industry, an appalling rate of divorce, out-of-wedlock birth, abortion, etc.
We are all things at the same time because we are left free to chart our own destiny in this world. And whatever we are, we are certainly not boring.
I predict that tremendous sacrifices made on behalf of complete strangers will be objectively a much bigger part of this story than the looting. But I also predict that the looting will get a lot more foreign press coverage.