It's clear that the leadership (at the top..... Bush and cronies) has been instrumental in distroying any world wide believe in American honor and decency. Any good done by the American citizens (especially the soldiers, etc) has been offset by the Bushites "evil" behavior.

Case in point... excellently summarized by Helen Brown... the leadership into Abu Graibe atrocities..

Time for Rumsfield to Resign - Reports Place Blame At Top Levels
by Helen Brown POSTED: 4:30 pm CDT August 27, 2004

"The origin of the scandal traces back to Feb. 2, 2002, when President George W. Bush abrogated the Geneva Conventions requiring humanitarian treatment of prisoners. Bush declared that those rules didn't apply to the U.S. war against terrorism. Bush has been scrapping our international agreements since he came into office, but for this one he has paid dearly in terms of just plain decency. When he canceled the Geneva accords, the U.S. focus was in Afghanistan, where American forces were rounding up al Qaida and the Taliban suspects.Later that year, in December, Rumsfeld authorized ruthless interrogation practices against detainees rounded up in Afghanistan and held at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Those approved practices included the use of dogs to terrify prisoners, forcing prisoners into prolonged, painful stress positions, stripping them naked, solitary confinement, shaving them and hooding them.The train then completely left the tracks after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, where American military personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison adopted the same interrogation tactics used in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay."