Tahera Ahmad's Diet Coke Hoax

In November 2014, the nation was in thrall to the story of "Jackie," who alleged that she had been gang-raped at a fraternity party at the University of Virginia. There were precious few who immediately questioned the veracity of the story. Among those was Richard Bradley, who was editor at George when serial fabulist Stephen Glass wrote there.

Bradley learned from his experience with Glass. He wanted to understand why he had been so "easily ...duped." His conclusion was that he was able to believe certain insinuations because "they corroborated [his] pre-existing biases."

His core lesson was that "one must be most critical, in the best sense of that word, about what one is already inclined to believe."

That neologism should be the screen-saver for every news producer and cub journalist in the United States. It would have spared us from enduring the Tahera Ahmad Diet Coke Hoax.

Start with the fact that every news story she appears in describes her as "a Muslim chaplain and director of interfaith engagement at Northwestern University." What she is, in reality, is a Muslim activist affiliated with CAIR. CAIR is Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

Ahmad claimed that a flight attendant refused to give her an unopened can of Diet Coke, on the grounds that it could be used as a weapon. She claimed that the man next to her got an unopened can of beer. She claimed that no one around her would support her, but in fact turned on her, and one man 'yelled' at her, "..you Moslem, you need to shut the fuck up."

What really happened on that flight may never be known, but there are certain insinuations that corroborate my pre-existing biases. Consider the words of someone who says they were on the same flight as Ahmad.

"She [Ahmad] ordered a coke zero and a hot green tea with a Splenda. The flight attendant handed her a full diet coke with a cup on top and then told her that the green tea would take a few minutes and she would get it to her ASAP. The lady said very rudely and condescending to the FA that she ordered a coke zero and basically pushed the soda back to the flight attendant. The FA said she was sorry and attempted to find a coke zero for her (which she did not have many of) and told her that she could only give her a portion of the can not the full can. This is when the lady in question started to freak out and told the FA “What do you think I will use this as a weapon?! Why can’t I have the whole can? I think you are discriminating against me. I need your name….” The lady just kept yelling to her “I need your name… I am being discriminated against.” This is when a few passengers told her to calm down and one guy told her to “shut her mouth and she is being ridiculous over a can of coke”. No one ever said anything anti-Muslim to her at all. . . . This person is a liar plain and simple and is just pulling the discrimination card."

I didn't believe Ahmad for one second. I believe the anonymous commenter. For one thing, it does appear, from reading her Facebook page, that she did immediately log into social media in an effort to have the event go viral before she even touched down.

Another reason I don't believe Ahmad's account is the social media content that has been taken down. She claimed her account has been repeatedly hacked, but this is just scrubbing for content. Upon landing, she posted to Facebook that "The pilot has apologized for everything that and said that as a white male he recognized his privilege." She also posted that "at the end of the flight the flight attendant acknowledged that her behavior was utterly rude and said she was sorry for her unethical behavior and agreed that the white male passenger said hateful words." Why did Ahmad try to send these words to the memory hole?

This whole episode is just an attempt to force United Airlines to prostrate themselves before the tender mercies of CAIR and admit that they are discriminatory and Islamophobic, and pay her some money. I call shenanigans!

All I wanted was a Pepsi, just one Pepsi, and she wouldn't give it to me.