You really pointed at my problem... Many things I find funny are not funny for public here. Maybe it's because of the cultural and lingual difference, in some aspects we are very different.
Now please let me explain what I find funny in a link Hortlund posted.
The joke is based on a fact that fire is a "technology" well-known to almost any human being for at least 1000 years. The absurdity of "US officials" sentences about "threat to American security" is what makes it so funny.
If we go deeper, we see that this joke is based on "real facts" of American officials stating that some well-known technologies, mostly exported by Russian companies (sorry, I see it from my own point of view, I don't care much if US accuses Senegal or Tongo for "illegal exports"), such as night-vision scopes, anti-tank missiles etc. The most brilliant example is the US demand to stop our co-operation with Iran in building nuclear powerplant at Busher. The last statement that I have heard of was that they are against Iran sending exposed materials and heat-emitting elements back to Russia before Busher power station passes all the international inspections. So, they want Iran to keep the possible nuclear weapon-grade materials
and at the same time say that Russia supports Iranian nuclear weapon programm... I find it almost as funny as Hortlund's link.
