That Great American Patriot Bill Maher smears our troops serving in Japan and Germany: “At some point these people are going to have to learn to rape themselves.”

Two quick things:

1) You’ll note that liberals have nothing to say about U.N. “peacekeepers” raping women and children around the world.

2) This story has gotten little attention here at home, but the woman who accused Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith of rape in the Philippines has recanted:

The Philippines rape conviction of an Okinawa-based Marine has taken a bizarre twist.

The woman, now 25 and known publicly only as “Nicole,” changed her story last week and now says she is not sure that Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith raped her in a van in Subic Bay more than three years ago.

In a sworn statement notarized March 12 and submitted to the Philippines Court of Appeals on Tuesday, she said she may have had too much to drink with Smith at a bar called the Neptune Club the evening of Nov. 1, 2005.

“My conscience continues to bother me, realizing that I may have in fact been so friendly and intimate with Daniel Smith at the Neptune Club that he was led to believe that I was amenable to having sex or that we simply got carried away,” she said in a five-page statement posted on several media Web sites.

Court of Appeals officials could not provide Stars and Stripes a copy of the statement Wednesday but confirmed by telephone that it was accurate and released by them.

Smith, now 23, was convicted and sentenced to 40 years in a Philippines prison. He is being held on the U.S. Embassy compound in Manila pending his appeal and negotiations between U.S. and Philippines officials concerning the country’s Supreme Court ruling in February that holding Smith at the embassy was a violation of the bilateral Visiting Forces Agreement.

“I would rather risk public outrage than do nothing to help the court in ensuring that justice was served,” Nicole said in the statement.

Smith has always contended the sex was consensual.

It remained unclear Wednesday what effect Nicole’s statement would have on Smith’s appeal.

Secretary of Justice Raul Gonzalez, the country’s highest-ranking jurist, said Wednesday that such reversals are “rarely accepted” as new evidence in the appeals process, according to a Justice Department spokeswoman.

However, Gonzales acknowledged that Smith’s lawyers “can ask the Court of Appeals to declare a mistrial and then move for a dismissal of the case on the grounds that the evidence is not strong.”

The U.S. Embassy in Manila had no comment on the recent developments.

Nicole said she remembered little of what occurred inside the vehicle, but thought the rape story grew from her embarrassment upon gaining consciousness after being carried out of the van.

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One more thing: Support the troops by supporting Soldiers’ Angels. They have an invaluable chapter in Germany, supporting wounded and ill coalition troops being treated at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.

More here.