> The alternative, visual approach in mountainous terrain on a moonless night, is clearly unwise for inexperienced pilots.

There is not only one alternative.

When presented with two impossible (per your telling) options for landing, you choose option C: don't.

> ATC could have waited until the plane was on the ground to tell the military they could resume GPS jamming

He hinted at this when he mentioned that ATC was dealing with other flights complaining about loss of GPS and coordinating with white sands. ATC crew were probably just out of their depth and trying their best, same as the flight crew. I wonder what the experience level of the ATC crew was and how much pressure they were getting from white sands to keep the jamming up.