The AAA's positions and leaders are so rabidly anti-military and anti-U.S. government, that any report by them will be a hatchet job. They may have made valid criticisms, but their own extremism ruins their credibility.

Note that in the executive summary the AAA stresses HTS as a de facto intelligence asset. For the most vocal members of AAA, this is like stating that HTS requires its members to violate babies, drink human blood, and oppose gay rights. In the AAA's world, the Intelligence Community is the standard of evil.

The AAA sees an opening to attack the U.S. military by claiming special expertise and insisting that they are the only ones with the real authority to be the arbitors of what right and wrong are for HTS. The phenomenal arrogance of this position is beyond rational discussion.

Look at their sources: the Open Anthropology blog, (now Zero Anthropology) authored by a guy who openly celebrated the murder of Paula Lloyd; American Counterinsurgency by a guy who passes judgement on current programs based on his opinions of things that happened decades ago and insists that anything an insurgent does is morally justified; and "anonymous sources" (as easily some nutjob in his mom's basement as someone with genuine information).

And on the lighter side, Small Wars Journal was cited as a source for the report...