Carol Rosenberg, the author of this nonsense and the New York Times who published this ignorant piece should be ridiculed and sent to be night security at inactive coal mines.
According to the Manual for Courts Martial (version 2019) and the UCMJ, both available at a quick query on Google, would inform the author and the NYT that Courts Martial do not have either a jury nor do they have a Foreman. Instead they consist of a Military Judge and Courts Martial members. The senior member of the Court is the President. This Navy Captain is clearly the President of the Court.
How can Carol and her beloved New York Times be so stupid and ignorant. The answer: no one cares and accuracy and truth are useless in the fight for the destruction of our country.
As for the substance of the article, I have served as both Courts Martial member and President many times. I would never have ignored or endorsed torture. Torture is what the Japanese, the Chinese, the Nazis, the Vietnamese, and the Iraqis have done. We shouldn’t join in the fun. But, I would also demand the solid evidence, not just the assertions by the likes of Carol Rosenberg. We don’t need to behave like our our enemies, but unfortunately, our own current Government may not believe that the Rule of Law applies to them.
With the commies it’s the ‘narrative’ that counts. Facts just get in the way of the narrative.
The sad truth is that torture works to get information but has a corrosive effect on the moral distinctions between us and terrorists. In the chaos and urgency after the 9/11 attack, we fumbled a bit but mostly got things right: keep the US military away from torture, while using waterboarding by the CIA to get essential information from the worst of the worst. On the spectrum of torture, it is relatively mild — not even torture, in some calculations.