CODEL planned for a very Kabul Christmas

[unhappycamper]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/in-the-loop/post/codel-planned-for-a-very-kabul-christmas/2012/12/04/ac4932f8-3e35-11e2-a2d9-822f58ac9fd5_blog.html

CODEL planned for a very Kabul Christmas
By Emily Heil
Posted at 03:29 PM ET, 12/04/2012

This overseas jaunt might be a bit of a tough sell: Rep. Mark Amodei is trying to recruit colleagues to accompany him on a CODEL to Afghanistan...over Christmas.

The Nevada Republican, a freshman, sent a missive looking for folks to join him to celebrate the holiday with the troops on a trip that takes off Dec.21 and doesn’t return to Washington until Dec. 29. Not that folks don’t want to visit the war zone to light the Yuletide fires, it’s just that most already have plans with their kith and kin that time of year.

And if we were betting types, we’d put money on Congress still being in session for most of that time, anyway, since the fiscal-cliff negotiations are likely to go riiight down to the wire.

But the Amodei staffer making the e-mail pitch offers one selling point to would-be attendees: “This may be one of the few remaining opportunities for your boss to visit Afghanistan before more troop reductions occur,” he writes.