Those wacky Syrians!

So I'm sure you've heard about this:

U.S. pressure is mounting on Syria in the wake of the deadly bomb blast in Lebanon that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

When I was in college, my freshman year roommate was Lebanese and he introduced me to the fact that Lebanon and Syria have not been the friendliest of neighbors. How did he explain the intricacies of this tragic conflict? By the telling of corny stolen jokes at the expense of the Syrian people, of course. What he would do is take your basic, time-tested Pollack joke and subsitute Syrian for Pollack. The result? Middle-eastern hilarity. The screen door on the submarine? A Syrian invention. Who forgot the recipe for ice cubes? The Syrians. Who's always drunk and getting in fights? The Irish.

The point is, we're all the same. No matter where you go, there's always one group that thinks a different group is stupid. If we had been involved in a lengthy war with Canada and they were funding terrorist attacks on our soil, do you think we would have the mutual respect and cooperation that we do now? Even a greasy Italian can figure it out.