If Ali had said "Vietnamese" instead of "Vietcong", I'd also have had nothing against them, and no quarrel with Ali's statement.
But the Vietcong were (and are) communist. Vietnam was an ally of the Soviet Union. And Kruschev had recently boasted / threatened that communism would "bury the west". We didn't want that then and we don't want it now. That's why we fought in Vietnam. It was against the "domino theory" of state after state falling to communism, a theory much mocked on the Left, but not so silly when facing the might and thrust of the Soviets and their clients.
I've lived in China under communism in the 70s and it cured me of my romance with the far left.
No quarrel with the Vietnamese, then or now? Sure.
But no quarrel with communism?
Sure had. Sure have.
